LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MAY 24 1887 




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HERE 



AND 



HEREAFTER. 



ermons and Papers 



BY 



/ 

REV. G. S. HUBBS, A. M. 



"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 

OF THE LIFE THAT NOW IS, AND OF THAT WHICH IS TO COME."-PaUL. 

"Herein full trust; hereafter in full joy."- Young. 




JANESVILLE, WIS. 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 

1887. 



OF CONGRESS 
WASHINGTON 






COPYRIGHT, 1887. 

BY G. S. HUBBS. 



5 



M Control Numbs, 




^P 9 * 031703 



PRINTED BY CHAS. L. HUSES. LAKE MILLS, WIS. 




DEDICATED 

to 
My Family, 
My Brother, 
My Friends, 

and to 

My Brethren 

of the 

Wisconsin Annual Conference 

of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 



To btpe Reader 



Why is this book ? What right has it to be ? 
Its existence and reason may be explained in 
few words. My shattered health compels me to 
preach in type if I preach at all. A friend urged 
me to prepare such a volume; others said I 
ought to do it ; advance-subscriptions removed 
all financial risk. The object of the book is to 
do good. I know that every part of it has been 
prepared with a view to God's glory and men's 
good . The most prayerful work of my life has 
been done on this book. If it fails to con- 
vert sinners and edify believers, I shall be 
disappointed. 

What is this book ? Aside from a short poem, 
a letter of consolation, an essay on Future Pun- 
ishment, and an essay on Mental Culture, it is a 
volume of sermons. The opening sermon and 
four others were written specially for this work. 
Half the volume is made up of sermons now 
written out for the first time from the brief notes 
originally used. These have had the benefit of 
my mature reflection and added experience. All 



6 



others have been carefully revised and, generally, 
much changed. To give greater variety, I have 
made nearly all the sermons short. I trust they 
are not mere outlines ; I have tried to condense 
them without squeezing them dry. The only 
arrangement of the contents is as follows: the 
longer articles are put at some distance from 
one another ; the sermons on the Decalogue are 
in consecutive order ; and the sermons to sinners 
and sermons to saints will be found (as we find 
sinners and saints) intermixed. 

I have honestly tried to make a helpful, reada- 
ble, thoroughly Christian book. I hope it will 
have a mission, if its field is not large. I com- 
mend it to God, and pray that it may glorify his 

Son, our Savior. 

THE AUTHOR. 

Janesville, Wis., April 25, 1887. 



Gonbenbs, 



Page. 

Death the Gateway to Life, - - 9 

Gone (A Memorial Poem), - - 27 

The Blessings of Sorrow, - - 29 

Debts to God, 32 

John the Baptist: or, Your Mission, - 37 

Duration of Future Punishment, - 43 
Sermons on the Decalogue: 

Introductory Words, - - - 58 

I. Jehoyah Supreme, - - 64 

II. Idolatry Forbidden, - - 72 

III. Profane Swearing, 78 
The Sin of Irreverence, - - 83 

IV. The Sabbath, 88 
Labor the Law of Life, - - 94 

V. Filial Duties, - - - 99 

VI. The Sanctity of Human Life, - 107 

VII. Marriage and Home, - - 113 

VIII. Dishonesty, - 121 

IX. Lying, - - - 127 

X. Covetousness, - 133 

Mental Culture a Christian Duty, - 140 

Enoch: or, Walking with God, - - 166 



Page. 

Simeon: or, Christ Revealed, - - 174 

The Mirage of Life, - 182 

What shall I do with Christ ? - 191 

Abel: or, the Speaking Dead, - - 203 

Death-Bed Repentance, - - 213 

Christianity too Good to be True, - 224 

Lessons from the Three Crosses, - 232 

Recognition in Heaven, - - - 236 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

"Why should we start and fear to die? 

What tim'rous worms we mortals are! 
Death is the gate to endless joy, 

And yet we dread to enter there.' 

These lines of Dr. Watts are a forcible state- 
ment of a very common inconsistency of our 
conduct with our creed. No one doubts that 
the New Testament teaches life beyond the 
grave; yet to many who accept the authority 
of Christianity — even to many who are truly 
Christians — there is a shadowy unreality, a 
vagueness of faith, that becloud hope and beget 
fear. They have more hope than firm faith, but 
their hope is not so much expectation as desire. 
This world and this life seem more real than the 
world and the life that we must die to know. 

True, we know nothing of the mode of exist- 
ence the other side of death, and but little of 
the world to come: but the same was true of us 
all as to this life and this world, before we began 
to breathe the vital air; yet we found oxygen 
for our lungs, milk for our hunger, care for our 
helplessness, light for our eyes, sound for our 
ears, and a solid world waiting for the tread of 
our feet. Wherever God has given life of any 
sort, he has, so far as our knowledge extends, 



10 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

provided the proper sustenance and environ- 
ment. The mode and the surroundings of the 
life to come may well be left to Divine Wisdom; 
our immediate concern is in the fact and the 
blessedness of the Christian's eternal future. 

The New Testament uses various words and 
phrases to bring before our minds that which 
lies beyond death; but it is remarkable that it 
uses, for this purpose, more frequently than any 
other word, the word LIFE. Life is a word 
that needs no definition outside of our experi- 
ence; life is one of the most real of all the objects 
of our knowledge; life is, to the most of men, 
& priceless treasure, so that "all that a man 
hath will he give for his life." If what we want 
is "more life and fuller," the revealing Spirit has 
met the need of our faith by the frequent appli- 
cation of the word life to the heavenly state. 
There life is more real than it is here, it is not 
: succeeded hj death, but flows on forever. A sick 
^Christian asked an attendant to write for him a 
lletter to a friend. "Say to him," said the suf- 
ferer, "that I am still in the land of the living — 
jH£>, do not write that — say that I am still in the 
land of the dying, but hope soon to be in the 
land of the living." Truly this is the land of 
the dying and the dead: be it ours to learn from 
God's Word, and to see "with the "eyes of the 
heart," that heaven is the "land of the living." 
Let us try to focalize the light that beams out 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 11 

from the word "life " in the New Testament, so 
as to make the next world seem like our home, 
not like a "castle in the air," but "our house 
which is from heaven," with which we expect to 
be "clothed upon" when we are "unclothed" 
by death of ' ' our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle." 

The future state of the redeemed is, in forty 
places in the New Testament, called "eternal 
life," "life eternal," "everlasting life," or "life 
everlasting." These varying expressions are all 
translations of the same Greek words. There 
are three Greek words for which our word life 
stands in the New Testament: one of them al- 
ways refers to man's life in the flesh; another 
has no perfectly clear application to any life but 
the present; the third word is used of this life 
and of the future life, and is the term used in all 
the texts quoted or referred to in this discourse. 
The expression, "eternal life," like the phrase, 
"Kingdom of God," is often inclusive of both 
worlds, but is often applied only to that part of 
our spiritual life which lies in the spirit-world. 
In thirteen of the forty passages, it is limited, 
by the connection, to life after death. The fre- 
quency of this term would suggest that it is pe- 
culiarly expressive. It certainly means more 
than immortality. The end of the ungodly is 
not called life. Some one has defined hell as 
"everlasting life in pain," but where does the 



12 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

New Testament dignify the future existence of 
the wicked by the word life? On the contrary, 
it is said that "he that belie veth not the Son, 
shall not see life;" that "he that hath not the 
Son of God hath not life;' 1 that "he thathateth 
his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no 
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him . ' ' Fur- 
ther, the spiritual condition of unbelievers is 
frequently called "death:" they^ are "dead in 
trespasses and sins." Their condition in the 
world to come is often represented by the same 
word, and this is naturally put in contrast with 
the life promised to God's people: "The wages 
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal 
life." Not only is the future of the unsaved 
called death, but it is also called perdition, de- 
struction, everlasting destruction, everlasting 
punishment. By these and similar expressions, 
their sad condition in the world to come is set 
before us, but the word life is nowhere in the 
Bible applied to their state; that word is re- 
served, in its application to the Hereafter, to the 
redeemed, and to God who, out of his fullness of 
uncreated life, bestows "eternal life through 
Jesus Christ our Lord," on believing and obe- 
dient men. 

Eternal life is not, therefore, simply endless ex- 
istence. We are prone to put the emphasis on 
the "eternal," and thus lose the deep significance 
of the noun to which it belongs. It is a blessed 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 13 

truth that "there shall be no more death" in the 
heavenly state, or, as the Savior phrased it, 
"Neither can they die any more;" but the quali- 
ty of that deathless state comes out in the word 
"life." The reality of that state is vividly pict- 
ured by this word which proves the continuance 
of our consciousness, our thoughts, our affec- 
tions, of all that makes "life worth living" in 
the present world. No shadowy realm, no "land 
of darkness," no dreamy existence, no ghostly 
underworld such as heathen poets painted, can 
be harmonized with those words, "eternal life. 1 ' 
Put the emphasis "where the scripture puts it, on 
the word "life;" for it will appear, as we pro- 
ceed, that the inspired writers often drop the ad- 
jective and represent the believer's future by the 
simple word, "life." 

Paul told Timothy that godliness has "prom- 
ise of the life that now is, and of that which is to 
come." Thus did the apostle bring clearly out 
the doctrine that "life is real" in the next world 
if it is real in this world. In the same epistle, 
he urges Timothy to so instruct the rich "that 
they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed." 
This is the Revised Version of the correct Greek 
text, and shows that the word life has a deeper, 
fuller meaning in its application to the world 
to come than it has when it refers to the pres- 
ent world. 

We must not fail to note that, in many instan- 



14 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

ces, "life" and "eternal life" are used inter- 
changeably. In John 3:36 we read, "Hethatbe- 
lieveth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he 
that believeth not the Son shall not see life." In 
the fifth chapter of the same Gospel are two like 
cases of the use of these interchangeable expres- 
sions; and in the tenth chapter the Good Shep- 
herd's words are, in one verse, " I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might have 
it more abundantly," while a later verse puts 
the same thought into the words, "I give unto 
them eternal life." Two more illustrative pass- 
ages might be quoted from the First Epistle of 
John. In Mat. 19:17 occurs the question, 
"What good thing shall I do that I may have 
eternal life ? " The Saviour's reply is, "If thou 
wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." 
Similarly, when a lawyer asked the question, 
"Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? " 
our Lord drew forth from him the two ' ' great 
commandments," and said, "This do and thou 
shaltlive." As Christ and his apostles viewed 
it, life is a word more consistently applied to that 
portion of our existence and experience that suc- 
ceeds death, than to the small portion that pre- 
cedes it. This earthly life is only the threshold 
of our house "eternal in the heavens." 

The Master's language, before quoted, "If 
thou will enter into life," does not stand alone 
in the use of that peculiar expression. In the 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 15 

eighteenth of Matthew, his words are thus 
recorded: "It is better for thee to enter into 
life halt or maimed, rather than having two feet 
to be cast into everlasting fire." "It is better 
for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather 
than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." 
That the words, "enter into life," refer to the 
future state is evident from their being contrast- 
ed with "everlasting fire" and "hell fire." The 
parallel passage in the ninth of Mark has the 
words, "enter into life" twice, as in Matthew, 
and then the expression is changed into "It is 
better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God 
with one eye." In Mark, the entering into life 
or into the kingdom of God is contrasted with 
being "cast into hell, into the fire that never 
vShall be quenched." To enter into life is, there- 
fore, to enter into the kingdom of God, and the 
connection shows that the words refer to after- 
death experience. In oriental style, the figura- 
tive language of these texts is carried to a limit 
that seems to indicate that one may begin the 
life to come in a maimed or disfigured condition, 
if we apply the words to the soul's future. But 
a little consideration of Scripture usage will 
help us. In the Sermon on the Mount, the same 
figure of cutting off an offending hand and pluck- 
ing out an offending eye is used, but the conclu- 
sion is, " It is profitable for thee that one of thy 
members should perish, and not that thy whole 



16 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

body should be cast into hell. , ' Evidently the 
meaning of entering into life with one hand or 
one eye, is that it is all-important that the spirit 
shall have the body in subjection, and that it is 
better to go to heaven maimed or disfigured than 
to go to hell with a whole and handsome body: 
that the roughest path that leads to life is bet- 
ter than the smoothest road that ends in des- 
truction. In these interesting references the 
Savior makes to the future life of his people, he 
appears to make little or no account of death, 
skipping it as unworthy of mention in the case 
of the faithful, or christening it with a new name, 
entering into life. To our Lord this life of duty 
and the coming life of destiny seem often to have 
appeared without the dividing line of death be- 
tween. He frequently ignores death. His pray- 
er for his disciples was, "Father, I will that they 
also whom thou hast given me, be with me 
where I am, that the}' may behold my glory." 
No word of dying to get there ! Again, in the 
same prayer, "And now I am no more in the 
world; but these are in the world, and I come to 
thee." Just before him were the betrayal, the 
mockery of a trial, the buffeting, the scourging, 
the crown of thorns, the agony of crucifixion: yet 
so clearly did he see "the joy that was set be- 
fore him" that he makes no account of the suf- 
ferings through which he passed to his exalta- 
tion. As one standing on a foot-hill may look 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 1 ( 

away to a mountian peak, not taking into his 
vision the valley that lies between, so our Lord 
shows us how we may, in our best moments, 
look to the "heavenly hills," and have no vision 
or thought of the ' ' vahW and shadow of death " 
through which we shall reach the hights of 
heaven. Too many of God's children fear death, 
though they hope for heaven, forgetting that 
Jesus came that "through death he might des- 
troy him that had the power of death, that is, 
the devil, and deliver them who through fear of 
death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." 
Ought Christians to shrink from dying when it 
means "entering into life"? Let us finish that 
hymn of Dr. Watts 's: 

"The pains, the groans, the dying strife, 

Fright our approaching souls away; 
And we shrink back again to life, 

Fond of our prison aad our clay. 

O would my Lord his servant meet, 
My soul would stretch her wings in hasle, 

Fly fearless through death's iron gate, 
Nor ieel the terrors as she passed. 

Jesus can make a dying bed 

Feel soft as downy pillows are, 
While on his breast I lean my head, 

And breathe my life out sweetly there.'' 

Peter, in his First Epistle, speaks of husband 
and wife as being ' ' heirs together of the grace 
of life." The reference is, as is evident, to the 
life eternal of which we in the flesh are only 
heirs. So our Lord drops out the word eternal, 
when he declares, as in the seventh of Matthew, 
' ' Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that 
leadeth unto life." As he sets the "life" over 



18 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

against "destruction," the end of the "broad" 
way, there is no doubt he refers to eternal life. 
In the fifth of Romans Paul writes that ' ' they 
which receive abundance of grace and of the 
gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, 
Jesus Christ." The future tense shows he is 
speaking of eternal life. In the same chapter he 
uses these words, " Much more, being reconciled, 
we shall be saved by his life." As he had just 
spoken of our being reconciled to God through 
Christ's death, he can refer only to that life 
which was stibsequent to the Savior's death; 
for Jesus was made a priest " after the power of 
an endless life," and "ever liveth to make inter- 
cession for us." In the fifth of Second Corinthi- 
ans, Paul indicates that the desire of burdened 
Christians is not simply release from this world's 
anxieties and sufferings, which would be only a 
negative good; he writes that they " groan "for 
something positive, something better, for more 
life rather than less. Hear the stately tread of 
his grand thought: "Not for that we would be 
unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality' 
might be swallowed up of life. ' ' To human eyes 
and doubting hearts, death seems like life swal- 
lowed tip by mortality; but to the eyes that 
look from the life beyond, and to believing 
hearts, the true meaning of a Christian's death 
is, "mortality swallowed up of life." To ac- 
complish this, what a full tide of life must rush 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 19 

into the soul of the departing saint! On this 
side, we say, "He is dead;" on the other side 
they say that another has "entered into life." 
In Second Timothy Paul calls himself an apos- 
tle " according to the promise of life which is in 
Christ Jesus." Of course this means the same 
as John's words in his First Epistle, "This is the 
promise that he hath promised us, even eternal 
life." In the same chapter of Second Timothy, 
Paul makes that glorious declaration that 
Christ "hath abolished death and hath brought 
life and immortality to light through the Gos- 
pel." Only a Christian faith can sing, with 
Longfellow, 

"There is no death: what seems such is transition; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the lile elysian 

Whose portal we call death." 

An angel, whose life was eternal life, liberated 
Peter and the other apostles from prison, and 
said to them, "Go, stand and speak in the tem- 
ple to the people all the words of this life." In 
like manner, Paul writes to the Philippians of 
"holding forth the word of life." Thus is the 
Gospel characterized as an instrument connected 
with the life eternal. In the latter part of his 
Gospel, John says he had written "that ye 
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that, 
believing, ye might have life through his name." 
Exactly the same thought is put into this lan- 
guage, in his First Epistle: "That ye may know 
that ye have eternal life, and that ye may be- 



20 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

lieve on the name of the Son of God." Thus do 
we learn that gospel truth was written, as well 
as preached, to win men to eternal life. Truly, 
therefore, it is the "Word of life." 

But the Word, written or preached, is only an 
agency to produce life eternal; the origin of this 
life is higher up, even in that Word who "was 
with God and theW T ordwas God, "and of whom 
it was said, "In him was life." In the New Tes- 
tament we often find the expression, "The liv- 
ing God." The words are so familiar that no 
passages need be quoted. But mark these words 
of the Savior, recorded in the sixth of John: 
"As the living Father hath sent me, and I live 
by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he 
shall live by me." Here the believer is shown to 
be a partaker of the life of Him who says, "I 
lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for- 
ever." In the discourse whence the Savior's 
words as to "eating" him are quoted, he calls 
himself the "bread of life," and says, "The 
bread of God is he which cometh down from 
heaven, and giveth life unto the world," and, 
" He that eateth of this bread shall live forever." 
Our Lord said, "I am the resurrection and the 
life;" and the righteous shall, at his call, come 
forth to the "resurrection of life." Jesus is the 
"Prince of life," and he assured his disciples, 
"Because I live, ye shall live also." Paul tells 
the Colossians, "Your life is hid with Christ in 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 21 

God," and speaks of the appearing of "Christ, 
who is our life." Surely, when, in looking for 
the origin of the life eternal in human souls, we 
find the same word used to set before us the 
blessed, underived existence of God and his Son, 
and the blessed, though derived, existence of 
those vitally related to God through Christ, the 
life of heaven seems as real and as certain as the 
existence of God and the truthfulness of our 
Savior. 

Our faith is helped to assurance as to the life 
to come, by the fact that eternal life begins while 
we are living in the flesh. Frequently, as we 
have seen, the term "life" or "eternal life" re- 
fers solely to life beyond death; often, however, 
the term includes the life of the soul from the 
date of the new birth. Thus Paul, in Romans, 
says we should "walk in newness of life," and 
asserts that ' ' the law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of 
sin and death." To the Ephesians he wrote, 
"You hath he quickened," that is, made alive, 
"who were dead in trespasses and sins." Jesus 
said, " He that heareth my words and believeth 
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life and 
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed 
from death unto life." In John's First Epistle 
is this statement: "We know that we have 
passed from death to life." Do we want this 
truth put into a different form? Take the sol- 



22 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

emn asseveration of our Lord: "Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he 
shall never see death." Consider the Savior as 
addressing you instead of Martha in these words : 
"Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die. Belie vest thou this?" The starting 
into life of a human soul by the "washing of 
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost," is the beginning of a deathless and 
blessed existence: heaven is begun on earth; eter- 
nal life has commenced in time. 

"The men of grace have found 

Glory begun below; 
Celestial fruits on earthly ground. 

From faith and hope may grow." 

Paul tells the Corinthians that God, who hath 
"wrought us for" our heavenly inheritance, 
"hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit." 
This "earnest" is not a pledge of eternal life, 
but a sample of it, a part of it, and so an assur- 
ance of it, Hence the apostle immediately adds, 
"Therefore we are always confident, knowing 
that while we are at home in the body we are 
absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith not 
by sight.) We are confident, I say, and willing 
rather to be absent from the body, and to be 
present with the Lord," or, as the Revised Ver- 
sion gives it, "to be at home with the Lord." 
In Ephesians, Paul says we have been "sealed 
with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the 
earnest of our inheritance." The saved soul 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 23 

has an assurance of eternal life, because it has 
eternal life. Writing to the Romans, Paul says 
we have the " first-fruits of the Spirit." If the 
rich experience of a saint like Paul is only the 
"first-fruits," " What shall the harvest be?" If 
our earthly experience is such that we have the 
"peace of God which passeth all understand- 
ing," "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and 
if we ' i know the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge, ' ' then ' ' What must it be to be there? ' ' 

"And if our fellowship below, 

Jn Jesus, be so sweet, 
What hights of rapture shall we know 

When round his throne we meet?" 

Thus we see that the faithful Christian is not 
dependent on faith and hope alone: like Paul, he 
may say, "We know that if our earthly house 
of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a 
building of God." 

Have you ever noticed how this word "life" 
connects itself with many of those forms of 
speech by which the Scriptures speak of the 
world beyond death? Paul speaks to the Phil- 
ippians of the "book of life," and the same ex- 
pression occurs six times in Revelation. When 
the seventy disciples returned from their mission, 
they said, "Lord, even the devils are subject 
unto us through thy name." In his reply, the 
Master said, "In this rejoice not, that the spir- 
its are subject unto you, but rather rejoice be- 
cause your names are written in heaven." 



24 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

Blessed are they whose names are written in the 
"book of life," for they shall "have right to the 
tree of life." Our first parents were excluded 
from the " tree of life," but the Savior says, "To 
him that overcometh will I give to eat of the 
tree of life." Ezekiel had visions of that tree, 
and John tells us that it "bore twelve manner 
of fruits and yielded her fruit every month; and 
the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the 
nations." This wondrous tree grows on both 
banks of a "pure river of water of life, clear as 
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God 
and of the Lamb." Unless "the living God" 
dies, that " river of water of life " will never fail, 
and the "tree of life " will be forever fruitful. 
Elsewhere in the book of Revelation, we read of 
the "water of life," of the "fountain of the wa- 
ter of life," and of "living fountains of waters." 
Once more we must look for this word "life." 
In the first of the Epistles of Christ to the seven 
churches, he promises access to "the tree of 
life;" in the second epistle, he promises a "crown 
of life." St. James also speaks of the "crown 
of life, which the Lord hath promised to them 
that love him." Truly, the "book of life, "the 
"tree of life," the "water of life," the "crown 
of life," and the "Prince of life," make the Here- 
after seem all aglow with life. 

In that "land of the living," "there shall be 
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; 



DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 25 

neither shall there be any more pain." Are not 
fullness of life, unbroken peace, ceaseless joy, the 
unclouded vision of Christ, the meeting that 
knows no parting, attractive to } r ou? We in- 
stinctively cling to the present life, and Ave ought 
to live as long and do as much work for the 
Master as we can, in this world; but, when our 
work is done, it is the Christian's privilege to 
feel that "to depart and to be with Christ" is 
4 ' far better ' ' than anything we can expect this 
side of death. The life which began in regener- 
ation will not be destroyed or interrupted by 
the death of the body; rather, it will become 
larger, fuller, more intense and more blessed. 

"So when my latest breath 

Shall rend the vail in twain, 
By death I shall escape from death, 

And life eternal gain." 

To die is, to God's people, to "enter into life." 
To be "absent from the body " is to be "at 
home with the Lord." To be "unclothed" of 
our "earthly house" is to be "clothed upon 
with our house which is from heaven." 

Work and pray, for soon the Master's words 
will be spoken to you, "To-day shalt thou be 
with me in paradise." Let us indulge in no idle 
longings for heaven while the Lord says, "Go, 
work to-day in my vineyard;" but let us not 
dread or fear the summons that shall call us to 
our eternal home. It is not far to the world of 
life and light. One night the disciples were 



26 DEATH THE GATEWAY TO LIFE. 

"toiling in rowing" against a contrar\- wind; 
toward morning the Savior came unto them 
"walking on the sea; 1 ' when they recognized 
him, "They willingly received him into the ship: 
and immediately the ship was at the land whith- 
er they went. ' ' Thus can his presence and power 
transport us immediately to the heavenly shore. 
One moment we shall bid our weeping friends 
"good night;" the next moment the risen Sav- 
ior will meet us with his "All hail!" We shall fall 
at his feet and worship him; we shall turn to 
the "loved ones gone before," whose love-lit 
e^^es will make them known, and bid them a 
"good morning" that shall never be followed 
by "good night," for "there shall be no night 
there." 

"We know when the silver cord is loosec' . 

And the vail is rent away. 
Not long and dark shall the passage he 

To the realms of endless day. 

The eye that shuts in the mortal hour, 

Shall open the next in bliss; 
The welcome shall sound in the heavenly woild, 

Ere the farewell is hushed in this.'' 



27 



[The following poem was written for a service in 
memory of Miss Irene C. Holeomb, who died Jan. 6, 
1881, in Marinette, Wis. Miss Holeomb had been a 
teacher in the high school and also in the M. E. Sunday- 
school. She was a young lady of rare gifts and graces, 
and, overborne by a complication of throat and lung 
trouble, sweetly " faded away into the light of heaven." 
The title was suggested by the recollection of an inci- 
dent which occurred in Beloit, Wis., in my boyhood. A 
young lady had long been very sick, and one morning I 
made my usual inquiry of her brother, " How is Mary?" 
With trembling voice he answered, " She's gone."] 

GONE. 

Gone from thy friends on the earth 

Gone to thy friends in the skies ; 
These sing thy heavenly birth, 

Those gaze with sorrow-filled eyes. 

Gone from thy pupils below, 

Gone to the Teacher above; 
There, with the heart all aglow, 

Learning new lessons of love. 

Gone from companions in toil, 
Gone to rejoice in thy i est ; 

Gone from seed-sowing the soil- 
Eating the fruit of the blest. 

Gone from the church of thy choice, 

Up to the temple of God ; 
There thou'lt forever rejoice 

Here tc have suffered His rod. 

Gone from thy brother in blood, 

Gone to that Brother Divine 
Who, in a life-giving flood. 

Poured out his blood to win thine. 

Gone from thy mother's caress, 

Gone to Our Father on high ; 
Gone from the home thou didst bless, 

Gone to thy home in the sky. 

Gone from this winter-bound coast, 

Gone to the bright Summer-Land; 
Soon as death's river was oossed, 

Life's river it seemed from the strand. 



28 GONE. 



Gone where no tears shall be shed, 
Gone from a world full of strife ; 

Gone from the land of the dead, 
Gone where there's fullness of lite. 

Gone from the suffering of time, 

Gone to be happy for aye; 
Gone to that healthier clime. 

Well, through eternity's day. 

Gone where no weakness of voice, 
Hinders communion by word, 

Gone e'er to sing and rejoice, 
Gone where thy thought will be heai'd. 

Gone from the twilight of faith. 

Passing in lightning-like flight, 
"Valley and shadow of death," 

Reaching the regions of light. 

Gone where in dai'kness none grope, 
Gone where are no weary feet ; 

Gone from the wond'ring of hope, 
Gone to fruition complete. 

Gone from thy work to reward ; 

Gone to thy crown by the cross ; 
"Into the joy of thy Lord'" 

Entered by "counting all loss " 

Gone where to know and be known, 
All the mind's longing shall meet ; 

Gone to a seat on a throne, 
Gone, friends and kindred to greet. 

Gone, yet thy work will survive ; 

Gone, but thy mem'ry we'll prize ; 
Gone— fare thee well— we will strive 

Thee to rejoin in the skies 



29 



THE BLESSINGS OF SORROW. 

LETTER TO A BEREAVED FRIEND. 

Truly, yours is a great sorrow, but you have 
a great Savior and a glorious hope. The plan 
of salvation, the promises of the gospel, and 
the grace of God are specially adapted to this 
world of sin, disappointment and sorrow. In 
the perpetual calendar of the New Dispensation, 
the calculations are made for all latitudes and 
all longitudes, but a very prominent place is 
given to Ramah, the land of "lamentation and 
bitter weeping." Heaven shines more brightly 
when its glories are displayed beside the woes, 
tears and partings of this world. Jesus becomes 
more precious as we realize the frailty of earthly 
friendships. The "bow of promise " is most re- 
splendent when the black clouds of mourning- 
contrast with the pure white light that forms 
its many-colored glory. And when we see the 
"rainbow round about the throne," the storms 
will all be past, and the " Sun of Righteousness " 
will shine, unclouded, forever. 

We shall soon be on the other side. I sit here 
in my study in northern Wisconsin, and look 



30 THE BLESSINGS OF SORROW. 

across the Menominee river to Michigan. 
Heaven is only another state, and it lies just 
across the river, "the narrow stream of death." 
That blessed world is as real as the Wolverine 
state; it is as visible to the " eyes of the heart " 
as the Michigan shore is to my natural sight. 
Sorrow's telescopic tears make the "better coun- 
try" seem nearer; friends gone before give it a 
home-like appearance; aching heads and hearts 
cause us to long for its rest; darkness and the 
"stormy wind fulfilling His word" make us 
"wish for the day." 

The hardships and disappointments of life are 
the rough-coated messengers of God, proclaim- 
ing, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand. ' ' Pain and grief are the ' ' weeping proph- 
ets " of Jehovah; sickness is an apostle of Christ, 
declaring, "Though the outward man perish, 
yet the inward man is renewed day by day." 
Death comes as the angel that awoke imprisoned 
Peter; our chains fall off, "the iron gate that 
leadeth unto the city" opens "of its own ac- 
cord," and the servant of Christ is forever free. 
All forces are under the control of our best 
Friend — 

"The ^-od that rules on high, 

And all the earth surveys; 
That rides upon the stoimy sky, 

And calms the roaring seas; 
This awful God i ours, 

Our Father and our .Love." 

We need not only stronger, but larger faith — 
a faith which takes in the little as well as the 



THE BLESSINGS OF SORROW. 31 

great things of life; a faith that includes not 
only bounties and fair-faced mercies, but also 
"blessings in disguise," among the proofs of 
our Savior's love; a faith that considers all 
providences as means of grace; a faith that with 
unfaltering tongue can say, "We know that all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God." 

"A faith that shines more bright and clear 

When tempests rage without; 
That when in danger feels no fear, 

In darkness knows no doubt." 



32 



DEBTS TO GOD. 

"How much owest thou unto my lord?"— Luke 16:5. 

In the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel by Luke 
is recorded the parable of the unjust steward. 
It is said he had been accused of wasting his 
master's goods, and, finding that he must lose 
his position, he proved the truth of the accusa- 
tion by a still further misuse of his employer's 
funds. This steward is imitated every day by 
men who freely spend and wantonly risk other 
people's money. This type of our modern de- 
faulters remitted a part of the amount due his 
master from different debtors, that he might get 
their good will and provide himself friends for 
the day of adversity soon to dawn upon him. 
The stereotyped question with which he opened 
his negotiations with the dishonest debtors who 
were willing to help him defraud his employer, 
was, "How much owest thou my lord?" It is 
to some thoughts suggested by this question 
that I invite your attention. We are all debtors 
to God. Let us study up our case, look over 
our accounts, to see how great is our indebted- 
ness to him. We will let the parable help us a 
little in our investigation. 



DEBTS TO GOD. 33 

Let it be remembered that I do not ask this 
question, "How much owest thou my Lord," 
with a view to lightening the burden of your 
debts. This was the steward's object, that is, 
his apparent object. No priest, bishop or pope 
has any right to interfere as to God's claims 
against us, or to make any terms of settlement 
not laid down in God's Word. This indebted- 
ness is a personal, an individual concern. It fol- 
lows us like our own shadow; it is as much an 
individual matter as our eating or our dying. 
Nor do I ask this question for my own sake. 
The graceless steward was really aiming at his 
own ease and profit, through his generosity to 
his master's debtors. He, like many others, 
was most selfish when he appeared most gener- 
ous. He was generous at the expense of an- 
other, and so bought the gratitude of his fellow- 
scoundrels cheaply. Unlike his intent, mine is 
simply for your profit, that you may know how 
your account stands between you and your 
Maker. It is a fact that many men do not 
know, or care to know, how much they owe to 
Him of whom we are taught to ask, "Forgive 
us our debts." Is he an honest man who does 
business without knowing, or caring to know, 
the extent of his liabilities? Is it consistent 
with common honesty for us to ignore God's 
claims? In business, such criminal carelessness 
leads to bankruptcy. A noted millionaire in 



34 DEBTS TO GOD. 

New York failed some } r ears ago, because he 
had done business without keeping account of 
his assets and his liabilities. What better than 
hopeless, involuntary bankruptcy can be expect- 
ed by a soul that keeps no reckoning, institutes 
no examination. 

To a few items of God's claims against us, it 
may be well to call attention. There is his pro- 
vision bill. He has given us our daily bread all 
our lives. His sun and his showers have ma- 
tured the products of the earth, on which our 
bodies have been sustained. He laid away the 
coal and iron for our use, ages before we were 
born. The hand of a beneficent Providence is 
everywhere manifest. You owe a great debt for 
board and clothes, your fuel and your fire. No 
matter though parents and friends have supplied 
you with these things. This is another item in 
the bill; for their time belongs to God. In this 
they have onl} r been his servants. Again, think 
of his book-bill against you. I say nothing of 
the religious literature that is the natural pro- 
duct of the revelation God has made. I simply 
ask you to consider how much you owe for the 
Bible. Your civil and religious liberty you owe 
to that book. Were it not for that, you would 
doubtless be a barbarian surrounded by bar- 
barians. Theodore Parker was not suspected 
of orthodox}^. Yet he wrote that there is "not 
a boy nor girl in all Christendom through, but 



DEBTS TO GOD. 35 

their life is made better by that Great Book." 
Once more, how much do you owe } r our great 
Master for personal service rendered? He has 
not left his work entirely to human agencies. 
"God was manifest in the flesh" that Ave might 
be benefited with clearer knowledge of our duty 
and his love. The whole earthly life of Christ 
was God's personal service for us. And you are 
conscious that the Divine Spirit has come to you, 
not only by the minis try of men, but directly, 
when there was no one present but you and 
God. In such hours your condition has been so 
clearly revealed, your duty made so manifest, 
your danger so distinctly shown, that you felt 
that your Maker was speaking to your spirit. 
Put together the few items we have considered, 
and tell me, "How much owest thou my Lord." 
And now what about settling? You cannot 
pay up, but you ought to be willing to come to 
a settlement. At present very favorable terms 
are offered. Honest debtors can get discharged 
from their debts. But you must put in all your 
assets. It will not do to play Ananias, and 
keep back a part, while professing to give all. 
You cannot make a fortune by taking advan- 
tage of heaven's bankrupt laws. The Great 
Judge knows whether you make an honest 
statement or not. You will never feel that your 
sins are forgiven until you are honest with God. 
Acknowledge the justice of his claim, give in all 



36 DEBTS TO GOD. 

your assets, yourself included, and avail your- 
self of the Gospel pro vision for moral bankrupts. 
Get a full discharge, and begin anew with God 
as your partner. 



37 



JOHN THE BAPTIST: or, YOUR MISSION. 

"Verily I say unto you, Among them th«».t are born of women 
there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist."— Mat. 11:11. 

There is great benefit to be derived from the 
study of biography. Especially is it to be ex- 
pected that great men will leave "footsteps in 
the sands of time," which will richly reward 
investigation. 

John's mission was a peculiar one. No other 
prophet was called to be the harbinger of the 
Messiah's speedy appearance. All others saw 
Christ afar off, or brought him near with the 
telescope of faith. But John proclaimed the 
speedy, almost immediate, coming of Christ. 
"The kingdom of heaven is at hand," was the 
burden of his prophecy. "There standeth 
among you one whom ye know not," he said 
toward the last, and finally he pointed to Jesus 
as he walked before the eyes of the people, and 
cried, "Behold the Lamb of God." Yet the 
great honor involved in being the harbinger of 
Christ brought with it the need for a strength 
of character seldom attained hj man. "He 
must increase, but I must decrease," told the de- 
votion, the total absence of envy and murmur- 



38 YOUR MISSION. 

ing, required of him who went ' ' before the face 
of the Lord to prepare his ways." And the pre- 
paratory character of John's labors is noticeable. 
He was to perfect nothing. He was to be the 
strong ploughman who was to tear up and turn 
over the stubborn soil. He was not to live to 
see the harvest, hardly was he to sow a single 
seed. But he was to prepare the soil for both 
sowers and reapers. Such rough-coated, hard- 
handed, true-souled men have done a vast work 
towards rendering this world habitable, civil- 
ized, Christian. Is it not true that in one sense, 
every one of us has a special mission in the 
world? "Every man's life a plan of God," is 
the way Dr. Bushnell put it. Your work may 
resemble the work of another, yet there are 
points of difference. Our work is as varied as 
our faces. A few features are common, but 
scarcely any two are exactly alike. No man 
should ape any other man. " Be thyself," is an 
exhortation to which all should give heed. The 
world is suffering for lack of individuality. Men 
and women are cramping their souls into fash- 
ionable or startling molds, instead of giving the 
fullest play and largest development to their God- 
given powers. "To thine own self be true; thou 
canst not then be false to any man." 

And, like John, it becomes us not only to have 
a mission but to understand it. There would 
seem to be small need of so many misplaced men. 



YOUR MISSION. 39 

We may, by studying ourselves and our sur- 
roundings, by listening for the call of God, find 
our life work. John knew well his mission. And 
this understanding of his work aided him to 
success. Discontent would often be prevented if 
men were only to become fully persuaded that 
they were in their proper sphere. Let a man re- 
alize that diversity of gifts and variety of labor 
are the Divine plan: let him reverently ask how 
and where the interests of humanity and the in- 
terests of God's kingdom demand that he 
should work, and then, whatever the work 
is, he will get rid of that friction which has 
worn away so many lives. A man who 
unduly magnifies his calling and depreciates 
his own powers, works at a great disadvantage. 
He is, as it were, frightened at his own shadow. 
He who despises his vocation and magnifies 
himself, will do poor work at great expense of 
nervous and vital force. Running gear should 
be neither too tight nor too loose. And, though 
the fit be perfect, should be kept oiled. Many 
men are in their proper places, the fit is exact, 
but there is "cutting" continually, for want of 
knowing their mission, and heartily accepting 
it. Some also have not succeeded because they 
have not found their true place. Joseph Cook 
failed as pastor, but is achieving great success 
in a larger sphere. John Foster was a failure 
in preaching, but his " Essays" will live while 



40 YOUR MISSION. 

there is an English literature. You can name 
one of the world's greatest statesmen, and one 
of the world's greatest journalists, both of 
whom are popularly supposed to have died be- 
cause the doors of the White House did not 
swing in at their "Open Sesame." How John 
the Baptist's full knowledge and hearty accept- 
ance of his appropriate work must have contrib- 
uted to his contentment. The Jews were ready 
to receive him for more than he was; but he an- 
swered, "I am not the Christ, but am sent be- 
fore him." And it is no wonder that he succeed- 
ed. And success is for all who find their work 
and do it; who do their work as John did his, 
without regard to consequences. 

Shall we take the time to inquire how this no- 
ble man was prepared for his work? Young- 
America wants to do a great work w T ith little or 
no preparation. He would be master of all 
trades and Jack of none. He is willing to reap, 
but has no time to sow. It is to be noted that 
in John's case much of the preparation was 
made before he was born. No small part of 
every man's success or failure is due to ante- 
natal influences. The minds of both John's 
parents were so wrought upon that they were 
fitted to send forth the hero-prophet from their 
home. How few persons are sufficiently enlight- 
ened on the transcendent importance of giving 
to their children a fair start in the race of life. 



YOUR MISSION. 41 

How few are informed as to their high duties in 
this matter. Dr. O. W. Holmes, remarking on 
the saying that a man can do any work if he is 
" called" early enough, says something to this 
effect: " True; but early enough, with most of 
us, would be two or three hundred years before 
we were born." The line of our ancestry often 
bounds the possibilities of our life. How sol- 
emn, then, the responsibility of parents. How 
great their opportunities to bless the world 
through the offspring of their pure bodies and 
their holy souls. 

But this great prophet followed a course of 
life which developed his inborn capacity and fit- 
ted him for his special work. He was a Nazar- 
ite, and the vow of a Nazarite was not only one 
of entire devotion to God, but a pledge against 
the use of "wine and strong drink." Stimula- 
tion of the bodily powers, gratification of the 
senses, some form of "fast living," has been the 
bane of men who seemed born to fame and use- 
fulness. On the one rock of alcoholic beverages 
how many noble souls have been wrecked. 
Though nobly born and well-bred, true success 
awaits only him who exercises his self-denial by 
refusing to pamper his body. If the body sub- 
jects the soul to its rule in the days of youth, it 
is doubtful whether the "jubilee" will ever 
come, when the slavish chains shall be broken. 
Could the young but realize that the glory of 



42 YOUR MISSION. 

manhood and the comfort of old age depend 
largely on youthful abstinence from the "lusts 
of the flesh," the " rising generation "might con- 
tinue to rise. But John was an ascetic as -well 
as a Nazarite. He "was in the deserts till the 
day of his showing unto Israel." For the hard, 
rough work before him, nothing could have bet- 
ter fitted him. And here also is a lesson for us. 
Solitude and meditation are necessary to the 
formation of a grand character. No man can be 
always in public and maintain his individuality 
and strength. And note, also, that John did not 
begin his life-work till he had reached maturity 
in years and fullness of preparation. And when 
he burst full-orbed on the vision of the people, 
they recognized his power. Solitude is not a 
waste of time. The years of quiet preparation 
at home, school, or shop, give a mighty impetus 
to our after life. Moses had a forty wears prep- 
aration in the quiet of Midi an, as well as forty 
years of life in the courts of Pharaoh, before 
God gave him the leadership of Israel. In this 
fast age we do not take time to make ready and 
take aim, but fire away with much noise and 
little effect. ' 

In conclusion, we may say that every true 
mission has some relation to the kingdom of 
God. Our highest usefulness and our truest suc- 
cess depend, as did John's, on what we do to 
"prepare the way of the Lord." 



43 



DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

My theme assumes that there will be punish- 
ment in the future world for those dying in sin. 
I am therefore saved the trouble of a discussion 
of that form of Universalism which limits pun- 
ishment to this life. In fact, Universalis ts have 
largely abandoned the "death and glory" doc-' 
trine, and admit, (strange that it should ever 
have been denied), that man takes his character 
with him when he moves into the other country. 
The moral connection between this life and the 
life to come is generally admitted by the best 
minds among all classes of Liberal theologians. 
Says James Freeman Clarke, "Unitarians and 
Universalists, Theodore Parker and R. W. Em- 
erson, teach retribution, present and future, 
with a force which leaves little need of addition- 
al arguments from orthodoxy." 

What are the arguments usually advanced to 
prove the ultimate salvation of the race? What 
are the difficulties in the way of accepting them? 

One of the commonest arguments is that 
drawn from the Fatherhood of God. We are 
asked, " Can a merciful father leave his children 
to perish?" No true parent, we are told, would 



44 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

consign his child to an eternity of misery. Num- 
berless arc the changes rung on this one analo- 
gy. Suppose we accept the doctrine of the Di- 
vine Fatherhood in its broadest sense; what 
then? Does it follow that God will save all? Do 
earthly parents always succeed in saving their 
sons from ruin? "No, but the analogy is, of 
course, imperfect, for God is infinite and man is 
finite." Very well; if the analogy is imperfect 
at some point, how do you prove that it is not 
imperfect at the very point which must bear all 
the strain of your argument? But have not Lib- 
eral Christians, and, perhaps, orthodox Chris- 
tians as well, gone beyond Bible warrant in this 
matter of the Divine paternity? Do the Scrip- 
tures say much of this Fatherhood as existing 
simply because man is God's creature, and was 
made in His likeness? Do they not tell us that 
to some who said, "We have one Father, even 
God," the Master declared, "If God were your 
Father, ye would love me," and "Ye are of your 
father, the devil"? Do they not condition the 
promise, "I will be a Father unto you," on 
" Come ye out from among them and be ye sep- 
arate"? "Then shall the righteous shine forth 
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," 
seems to imply spiritual resemblance as well as 
heirship, spiritual resemblance as the title to the 
"kingdom." "Like as a father pitieth his chil- 
dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, "is 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 45 

far from helpful to the Universalist argument, 
while the clearest Bible statement of the analo- 
gy, ".If ye, then, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more 
shall your Father which is in heaven give good 
things to them that ask him," is a text whose 
expressed condition forbids us to lift all men in- 
to heaven with the doctrine of the Fatherhood 
of God. 

We are informed that Universalism is a logical 
result of the Perfections of the Divine Nature. 
Every attribute of Deity is claimed as an argu- 
ment in favor of this system. The justice of 
God is said to be impugned by the supposition 
that so weak a creature as man shall, for the 
sins of this brief life, suffer forever. To this I 
reply: (1). It is not to be expected that "so 
weak a creature as man" should, during "this 
brief life," be able to " find out the Almighty to 
perfection." He maybe just though you cannot 
see it. (2). You firmly believe that God is just, 
yet you are not able to "vindicate the ways of 
God to man" in this world. It is safe to say 
that among all the attempts to solve the 
problem of the existence of evil under the gov- 
ernment of a righteous God, from Leibnitz to 
Bledsoe, no satisfactory Theodicy has been pro- 
duced. With this question the purest hearts and 
mightiest intellects have always been perplexed. 
The attempt of Edward Beecher and others to 



46 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

solve the problem by assuming the pre-existence 
of human souls, shows how hard pressed are 
those who endeavor to demonstrate the Divine 
Justice to reason, rather than submit the matter 
to Revelation and faith. Dr. Lyman Beecher was 
not far out of the way, if, as is reported, he dis- 
couraged the publication of his son Edward's 
" Conflict of Ages," remarking, " My son, if the 
Almighty has got himself into trouble by allow- 
ing evil to come into the world, I do not want 
any of my children to help him out of it." (3). 
Whoever heard of adjusting the period of pun- 
ishment to the length of time employed in the 
criminal act for which it was inflicted? A petty 
larceny may take a hundred-fold more time than 
a murder. Further, if it be the endlessness of 
punishment that is objected to, it is easy to 
show that on any principles which admit future 
punishment at all, the consequences of men's ac- 
tions are eternal; a man will always be worse 
off for having sinned. I must confess that 
sometimes, in considering the demands men 
make on the Divine justice, it has seemed to me 
a desirable thing to cast up the other side of the 
account, and learn whether man owes anything 
to God. Do we ever consider that there is such 
a thing as justice to God. Are creation, preser- 
vation, redemption, worth anything, and do 
they give him a claim on us? It may be well to 
weep with Christ, instead of whining with im- 
penitent sinners. 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 47 

"But 'God is love,' and this crowning attri- 
bute, this very essence of the divine nature, dis- 
proves everlasting punishment." Surely it is 
not meant that God's love conflicts with his jus- 
tice. It can not be supposed that his love will 
sully his holiness, destroy his truth, overturn 
the plans of his wisdom. Love does not al- 
ways win in this world. "Oh! it has not time 
enough ; it will be sure to win at some remote 
period in eternity; love is all-powerful." It is a 
sad fact that some do not yield to its power, but 
grow worse and worse under its influence. Now 
unless God has more love than we know, or ex- 
hibits it more clearly than now, continuance in 
sin will make the sinner less and less likely to be 
moved by these means. Again, if it is only a 
question of time, if the sinner must yield at last, 
why is not the full strength of the motive 
brought to bear at once, and thus love be saved 
much of its work, and the sinner all of his suf- 
fering? If the suffering be claimed to be disci- 
plinary, then it is really the suffering, employed 
by love, that is to do the work. Salvation by 
suffering will come up for consideration bv and 
by. 

Again: "God is omnipotent, and will not be 
frustrated by puny man. He will never suffer 
an eternal hell to mar the harmony of the uni- 
verse. 'With God all things are possible,' even 
the salvation of the race." If, then, man can 



48 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

not frustrate the Divine plans, sin must be a 
part of the plan for this world. Directly or in- 
directly, God must be its author. But we read 
that the "Pharisees and lawyers rejected [in 
margin frustrated] the counsel of God;" and 
though the divine purpose is thus expressed: 
"God our Saviour, who will have all men to 
be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the 
truth," still we see all men are not saved, do not 
know the truth. We must admit that, weak as 
man is, he can frustrate the divine intentions con- 
cerning- him. What a wild notion is this, that 
omnipotence can save men, that is, make them 
virtuous. Power cannot produce holiness. You 
might as well ask how much power could chis- 
el out an Apollo Belvidere, or paint a Transfig- 
uration. Omnipotence can not make a charac- 
ter for one of the weakest of the children of 
men. The modern doctrine of the " Correlation 
of Forces ' ' does not include the transmutation 
of Divine power into human virtue. 

Do you say, " God is infinitely wise, and knows 
just what means to use to bring men to holiness 
and heaven "? Then, in the name of sinning, suf- 
fering humanity, if all is to be resolved into a 
question of adaptation of means to ends, and 
there is infinite wisdom to make the adaptation, 
why is the result so long delayed? Wiry do men 
spend a long life in sin, and go to their graves 
full of iniquity? Why does this world go madly 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 49 

staggering on, under its burden of woe? If in- 
finite wisdom can devise the means to secure in- 
tegrity of character in all men, then either God 
would as soon let the world go on for a while, 
sinning and suffering, or else he is experimenting 
to find out the best method of saving the race. 
If the first, he does not hate sin; if the second, 
his wisdom is not infinite. The fact is, salva- 
tion is not a result of wisely-ordained means, but 
of man's use of God's method. Infinite wis do m 
made man free; it can not violate his freedom. 

It is also argued: " God must have foreknown 
how things would turn out, and he would never 
have made man, if he had known that a vast 
number of the race would be eternally lost." 
Who told you so? Where was it written? Or did 
God grant you a special revelation on this point? 
It seems to me the Divine foreknowledge is a 
question too high, too deep, too long, too broad, 
for us to grasp so as to reason from it concern- 
ing the salvation of the race. We have no more 
right to mix up this question with man's sin 
and sufferings in the future, than with sin and 
consequent suffering here and now. Does a 
drunken man become sober as soon as he real- 
izes that God foreknew his drinking and drunk- 
enness? Does conscience let go its grip on your 
soul whenever you reason that your sin was 
foreknown? So far as man's responsibility, sin 
and suffering are concerned, it makes no differ- 



50 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

ence whether God possesses the attribute of fore- 
knowledge or not. It is not a question of the 
Divine perfections, but of human imperfections. 

Leaving the argument from the attributes of 
God, let us consider the claims made on other 
grounds. It is said the provisions of the Gos- 
pel are made for the race, that redemption is 
universal, that ''Jesus Christ offered himself a 
ransom for all," and "tasted death for every 
man." True, gloriously true; but so has God 
provided even beyond the necessities of the race, 
in things "needful to the body," but while there 
is waste, there is also want, and men are in 
need, yes, men starve on this earth that groans 
under the burden of the Divine bounty. God's 
provision and man's use are two distinct and 
separate things. "Yet there is room," is a 
grand text, but it does not prove the untruth of 
that other saying, found in the same connection, 
"None of those men which were bidden shall 
taste of my supper." 

How often we meet with this assertion, " The 
whole spirit of the Gospel is in favor of Univer- 
salism." Granted, if you mean that the Gospel 
breathes the spirit of love and universal benev- 
olence. But if by " the spirit of the Gospel " you 
mean something that does not dwell in the let- 
ter of the Gospel as its body, you concede the 
falseness of the letter. With you, exegesis is 
worth nothing; sentiment, ever\^thing. Now if 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 51 

that sentiment does not legitimately grow out 
of Scripture teaching, if that spirit has no affin- 
ity for this body, then the sentiment and spirit 
are not Christian; for Christianit\ r is an historic 
religion, a " book-religion.'' Says Macaulay, 
"The really efficient weapons with which the 
philosophers assailed the "Evangelical faith were 
borrowed from the Evangelical morality." I 
humbly submit the question: Is such a warfare 
honorable? Is not Gospel theology as authori- 
tative as Gospel morality? • 

"But the .Bible, rightly interpreted, teaches 
Universalism." I have not the time nor the dis- 
position to enter at length upon the exegetical 
argument. The following points seem to me 
sufficient: (1). The Christian Church in general 
has never so understood the Scriptures. (2). 
The usual methods of argument employed by 
Universalists, ignore the question of exegesis. 
Mr. Curry, a Universalist minister of Indiana, 
published some years ago a sermon on "End- 
less Punishment,' ' and threw his argument into 
orm: "Because the Bible is the -word of 
God, and endless sin and suffering are inconsist- 
ent with the character of God, therefore the Bi- 
ble does not teach the endless continuance of sin 
and suffering." Dr. T.»B. Thayer and other 
leading Universalists might be quoted to show 
that Mr. Curry's argument is of the regular 
pattern. Dr. J. F. Clarke, denominationally a 



52 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

Unitarian, but an avowed believer in restora- 
tion, thinks "the atheist has done less to dis- 
honor the name of God, than those who 
teach the eternal punishment of the wicked." 
Yet the same author admits that while some 
texts of the New Testament ' ' appear to teach a 
final, universal restoration," "there are passa- 
ges in the New Testament which appear to teach 
never-ending suffering." "In the Epistles of 
Paul," he says, "there are five or six passages, 
which appear to teach, or to imply, an ultimate 
restoration or salvation of all moral beings." 
His argument against endless punishment is, as 
indicated by these quotations, not an exegetical 
one. "The fatherly character of the Almighty " 
is his main reliance. The usual methods of ar- 
gument for Universalism, it is safe to say, are 
not biblical, except so far as inference from Bi- 
ble doctrine on other subjects gives them a title 
to that name. And is it not strange that an in- 
ference from the Bible doctrine concerning God, 
should be considered of more value to the Uni- 
versalist argument, than God's own words on 
the subject of future punishment? This is cer- 
tainly an exaltation of reason above Revelation, 
and is a clear abandonment of the exegetical ar- 
gument. (3). Let us note some concessions and 
confessions on the direct teaching of the Bible, 
that we may see how evidently the letter 
of Scripture condemns Universalism. Theodore 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 53 

Parker believed that "The Universe" teaches 
the salvation of all, but he says, "I think there 
is not, in the Old Testament, or in the New, a 
single word that tells this blessed truth, that 
penitence hereafter shall do any good." The 
American Unitarian Association declared, at its 
meeting in 1853, "It is our firm conviction 
that the final restoration of all is not re- 
vealed in the Scriptures." Since the above- 
named date, I believe this body has never 
given an expression on this subject. Certain- 
ly it has never pronounced in favor of Uni- 
versalism. Dr. Channing tells us: "On this 
and on other points, Revelation aims not to 
give precise information." Dr. E. H. Sears says: 
"Unitarians do not think Restorationism a doc- 
trine of Revelation, fairly yielded by the inter- 
pretation of Scripture." Dr. J. F. Clarke seems 
to admit that " Scripture does not expressly de- 
clare that there is an opportunity in the other 
life for repentance and pardon," yet he acknowl- 
edges, on the £ame page, that "the question 
must be answered only from Scripture." The 
foregoing quotations from non-orthodox sour- 
ces, might easily be multiplied. They will suf- 
fice, however, for samples, and are sufficient to 
shield us from the charge of bigotry, when we 
deny that Universalism is a doctrine clearly 
taught in the Bible, and deducible therefrom by 
an honest interpretation of the texts directly 
bearing on this subject. 



54 FUTURE PUNISH MENT. 

As to the means of salvation in the future, 
Universalists have a choice among three views, 
and each view has its advocates, though one of 
them seems just now to be meeting with general 
favor, perhaps because it is a near approach to 
the Evangelical idea of the condition of salva- 
tion. 

An opinion, once common, but now obsoles- 
cent, that men will be saved by a sovereign act 
of the Divine will, demands a moment's notice. 
This notion is no doubt a relic of the Calvinistic 
views so generally prevalent in this country 
during the early histor\ T of American Universal- 
ism. No one who has read the life of Rev. N. 
Stacy, and others of the old school of Universal- 
ists, can have failed* to discover the influence of 
Calvinistic ideas on Universalist theolog\\ 
There was the old principle of Divine sover- 
eignty, but general election was substituted for 
particular, and — presto! the whole world would 
be saved by a Divine volition! Upon this prin- 
ciple of salvation, (as indeed on pure predestin- 
arian principles, by which onfy a part are 
elected,) the praises sung by a saved soul are of 
as much value as the words spoken hj the $20,- 
000 talking-machine exhibited by Barnum. 
And the satisfaction, the happiness, the glory, 
are only what belong to an automaton. But 
the theory is so nearly dead that it is unneces- 
sarv to do more than wait a little to see it 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 55 

die. Nor will we weep at the obsequies, for "it 
is not our funeral." 

Salvation through suffering, or salvation after 
the sinner has suffered to the full extent of his 
demerit, is another way out of hell. This the- 
ory has many modifications, but the same ob- 
jections hold against every form of it, viz.: Suf- 
fering, as we see it, has no intrinsic power to 
purify; this view makes two ways of salvation, 
one through Christ, and the other through hell- 
fire; it makes human weakness stronger than 
Divine power. It thus contradicts Providence, 
degrades Christ, and overtops the Infinite Wis- 
dom and Love. 

But the Universalism of to-day has made an 
approximation to Arminianism, in its doctrine 
of free agency, and to the Evangelical churches 
generally, in its view of salvation through 
Christ. It holds that offers of mercy and helps 
to holiness will be extended in the future world, 
and that, sooner or later, every soul -will see 
that its best interests demand that it shall sub- 
mit, and that it is sure that no soul will hold 
out against the grace of God after it sees that 
its only wisdom is to yield. Salvation, there as 
here, will be through Christ, on repentance and 
faith. By this theory, it is supposed, man's 
agency is not violated. Yet it is easy to see 
that the Arminian and the Universalist ideas of 
free will are not identical. It is verv evident 



56 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

that the old Calvinistic doctrine of Divine sov- 
ereignty is the basis of this type of Universal- 
ism. True, Dr. J. F. Clarke admits that ''the 
power of the human will to resist God, is indeed 
indefinite." Yet he adds: "But the power of 
love is infinite. Sooner or later, then, in the 
economy of the ages, all sinners must come 
back. You may resist God to-day, to-mor- 
row, for a million years; but, sooner or later, 
you must return, obey, repent, and submit." 

Akin to these sentiments is the following, from 
F. D. Maurice's essa}^ on "Eternal Life and 
Eternal Death:" "I ask no one to pronounce, 
for I dare not pronounce myself, what are the 
possibilities of resistance in a human will to the 
loving will of God. There are times when they 
seem to me — thinking of myself more than of 
others, almost infinite. But I know that there 
is something which must be infinite." It will 
be seen from these quotations that the Gordian 
knot of human freedom is cut, not untied. It is 
absurd to say a free agent must at some time 
yield to God. The fact that man is free, a fact 
resting on the Jachin and Boaz of God's word 
and man's consciousness, this fact alone is an 
irrefutable argument against Universalism. A 
little further development of the doctrine of 
free will among Universalists, and an entire 
abandonment of the Calvinism that still lingers 
with them, will necessitate the abandonment of 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 57 

Uni vers alism, though the doctrine of future pro- 
bation should be retained. 

But I must bring this investigation to a close. 
From the ease with which Universalist argu- 
ments may be met, from the Scriptural and ra- 
tional objections to the system, (a part of 
which, only, have been produced,) from the con- 
stitution of the human soul, from the obvious 
difficulties that lie in the way of any of its vari- 
ous methods of securing the great result, we are 
prepared to say that Mr. Winchester, himself a 
Restorationist, spoke a plain truth when he ad- 
mitted that to believe in Universalism requires 
more faith than any man needs for his personal 
salvation, more faith than Abraham, the pat- 
tern believer, possessed. 

Theodore Parker admitted that Jesus taught 
the everlasting punishment of the wicked, but 
refused to accept the doctrine on his authority. 
Can we who recognize the Divine authority of 
Jesus, do otherwise than accept what he so 
plainly taught? And, seeing men's danger, let 
us be in earnest in our endeavors to rescue them. 
" Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, 
we persuade men." Let us bring the mighty 
motive of the remediless character of future 
punishment to bear upon the sinners around us, 
and we shall see the use that can be made of 
this awful truth. 



.58 



THE DECALOGUE: INTRODUCTORY 
WORDS. 

"And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye 
heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye 
heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he 
commanded you to perform, even tan commandments; and he 
wrote them upon two tables of stone."— Deuteronomy 4:12, 13. 

The law, as contained in the Ten Command- 
ments, was given under veiw impressive circum- 
stances. The scene is laid hj the historian in a 
wild, barren, drear} T region, where nature 
seemed in keeping with the severity of the law. 
Added to the naturally desolate and forbidding 
character of the bleak granite mountains, were 
the supernatural manifestations that preceded 
and accompanied the giving of the law. In Ex- 
odus 19:16 we read, "And it came to pass on 
the third day, in the morning, that there were 
thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon 
the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceed- 
ing loud; so that the people that was in the 
camp trembled . " A thunder-storm in the moun- 
tains is a grand and awe-inspiring sight; but it 
would seem, as Dr. Bush remarks, that "the 
clangor of an unearthly trumpet was mingled 
in the din of the elements to deepen the convic- 
tion that the whole scene was preternatural." 



THE DECALOGUE. 59 

Two verses later are the words, "And Mount 
Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the 
Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke 
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and 
the whole mount quaked greatly." The effect 
on the minds of the people is recorded in Exo- 
dus 20:18,19: "And all the people saw the 
thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise 
of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: 
and when the people saw it, they removed, and 
stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, 
' Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let 
not God speak with us, lest we die.' " We are 
told in the verse introducing the Decalogue, that 
"God spake all these words." Again, in our 
text it is said, "And the Lord spake unto you 
out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice 
of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye 
heard a voice. And he declared unto you his 
covenant, which he commanded you to perform, 
even ten commandments; and he wrote them 
upon two tables of stone." 

The completeness with which the Decalogue 
sums up human duties, is a proof of its Divine 
origin. Though given to a rude people, and in 
an age when men were ignorant of God and un- 
brotherly to man, the "tables of stone" con- 
tained an epitome of man's duty, that the world 
can never outgrow. The statement of the 
claims of God on man's service, the doctrine of 



60 THE DECALOGUE. 

the spirituality and the infinite majesty- of Jeho- 
vah, the teaching that not only do we owe cer- 
tain duties to God, but that God commands us 
to do certain duties to our fellow-men — thus 
making, as Josephus puts it, "morality to be a 
part of religion " — the comprehensiveness of the 
few statements of our duties to one another, all 
these are evidences that God was the author of 
this law. An infidel who had resolved to read 
the Bible, read till he had finished the twentieth 
chapter of Exodus. Here he stopped and medi- 
tated; he carefully examined these command- 
ments; he saw that they epitomized all human 
duty; he considered the intellectual and moral 
character of the time when this law was given; 
he asked himself the question, "Where did Moses 
get that law?" He could find no reasonable 
answer, except that given by Moses, namely, 
that the author of the law was God. The infi- 
del was an infidel no longer. 

Our Savior quoted from the words written by 
Moses, a remarkable compend of the Decalogue. 
As recorded in Matthew 22:35-40, the account 
reads thus: "Then one of them, which was a 
lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, 
and saying, ' Master, which is the great com- 
mandment in the law'? Jesus said unto him, 
' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all tlvy 
mind. This is the first and great command- 



THE DECALOGUE. 61 

ment. And the second is like unto it, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets.' " 

This answer of the Master not only shows 
that there are two classes of duties, but it 
teaches that "love is the fulfilling of the law." 
Nearly all of the commandments are prohibi- 
tions; they state our duties negatively, by for- 
bidding sins against God and man. Our Savior 
here states those duties positively, and the 
"second" commandment of the great two is 
"like unto" the first, for love is the essence of 
both. As John teaches in his First Epistle, love 
to God and love to man are inseparable duties: 
piety and morality are parts of one great whole, 
both being enjoined by Divine authority. As he 
expresses it in I John 4:21, "This command- 
ment have we from him, that he who loveth 
God love his brother also." 

The moral law, summed up in the Decalogue, 
is of universal and perpetual obligation. The 
ceremonial law was only for the Hebrew nation, 
and was designed to be fulfilled and " done away 
in Christ"; but the law that teaches the duty 
of love to God and man, is evidenced by its na- 
ture to be for all men and all time, yea, for eter- 
nity: because, without the observance of the 
"law of love," heaven would be an impossibil- 
ity. Moreover, the New Testament re-enacts 



62 THE DECALOGUE. 

the moral law, not only giving it the solemn 
sanctions of the Son of God and his apostles, 
but amplifying its meaning, enlarging its scope, 
multiplying its applications, and revealing its 
deep spiritual significance. We are living in the 
Christian dispensation, and we can not, if we 
would, limit the moral law to outward observ- 
ance alone; we are enlightened, and the law is 
enlightened by the shining of Christ's teachings 
upon it. We must read the Old Testament in 
the light of the New; we must add the spirit to 
the letter; we must, in studying the Decalogue 
as to what it means for us, ask how Christ in- 
terpreted it. 

We do not seek life by the study and the keep- 
ing of the law; we look to the law for a com- 
prehensive statement of our duties, for the 
quickening of our moral faculties, for conviction 
of sin — because it is evident we ' ' all have sinned 
and come short of the glory of God," when we 
measure ourselves by this perfect standard. 
The law is, as Paul said, a "ministration of 
death, written and engraven in stones," but the 
Gospel is a "ministration of the spirit" and a 
"ministration of righteousness." We may, 
therefore, stand without fear by quaking Sinai, 
with its "blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 
and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of 
words," if Christ, who "hath redeemed us from 
the curse of the law," stands by us, and dwells 



THE DECALOGUE. 63- 

in us as a saving power. "For the law was 
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ." 

It is noteworthy that throughout the Deca- 
logue the singular number is used. God does 
not say, "Ye shall not," but " Thou shalt not.'*' 
The moral law is not addressed to men in gen- 
eral, but to each man in particular; and we are 
told, "Every one of us shall give account of 
himself to God." So the saving application of 
the Gospel depends on individual repentance 
and faith . Friend , ' ' Wilt th o u be m ade whole? ' ' 



64 



JEHOVAH SUPREME: or, THE FIRST COM- 
. MANDMENT. 

Exodus 20:3. 

The text reads, "Thou shalt have no other 
gods before me." The meaning evidently is > 
that the great God expects unswerving loyalty 
from his subjects, undivided service from his wor- 
shipers. No other being or object must be per- 
mitted to supplant him in the affections of his 
creatures. 

There was great reason for this commandment 
when it was spoken from Sinai. The world was 
full of gods. A multitude of deities were wor- 
shiped, often by the same nation and the same 
individual. There were not only national gods, 
but gods of the hills, gods of the valleys, gods 
of the sea, gods of the woods, gods of all sorts, 
sizes and powers. Polytheism was in the air. 

Besides, the Hebrew nation was just out of 
Egypt, where Jehovah, who had been worship- 
ed by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was unknown, 
but where Isis and Osiris, and other deities re- 
ceived the homage of the people. Four hundred 
years the Hebrew nation -had been subjected to 
Egyptian influence, and much of that time they 



JEHOVAH SUPREME. 65 

were in bondage. It was to be expected that 
these freedmen would be mentally weak, and 
morally and religiously debased, and, therefore, 
in great need of plain teaching and strict com- 
mandments as to the very elements of worship. 
Besides the natural tendency of fallen man to- 
wards polytheism, they had had an evil educa- 
tion, and would, even in the land of promise, be 
surrounded by nations who had many gods but 
knew not Jehovah, the true God. Specially fit- 
ting was it, then, that the first commandment 
should prohibit to the Israelites the sin of their 
nature, the sin of their times, the sin of their 
neighbors. 

But this commandment seems to belong at the 
beginning, from its nature, and from human na- 
ture in all ages. The foundation of religious 
and moral character is laid in the text. The 
true God must be recognized, and his claims to 
service admitted to be supreme. To worship 
him as one of our gods, to give him a second- 
ary, or even lower place, in our affections and 
our plans, is abomination to him, and ruin to 
us. 

The world has always been in a thousand-fold 
more danger from polytheism than from atheism . 
In spirit, and on its positive side, as a command 
to love and worship the true God, the text for- 
bids atheism as well as polytheism; but in form, 
the commandment is directed only against hav- 



66 JEHOYAH SUPREME. 

ing many gods, not against having no God. 
There were no atheists then; there never have 
been many, and there never will be many. Man 
is, by nature and necessity, a worshiper. Only 
a "select few " find it possible to be atheists, or 
to approximate atheism. These are usually 
fractions of manhood, who have, " with logical 
scissors, cut the nerve of the moral life." The 
genuine atheist is destitute of the most distin- 
guishing part of a complete human nature. 
Man has so much to pray for, is so ignorant and 
dependent, is so burdened with sin and sorrow, 
is so interested in the great question of life be- 
yond the grave, that his nature and his exper- 
iences are a perpetual protest against atheism. 
The grounds of Jehovah's claims to suprem- 
acy in service, worship and love, are set forth in 
the verse preceding the text: "I am the Lord 
thy God, which have brought thee out of the 
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." 
The word Lord, used in this verse, as always 
when it is printed in the Old Testament in small 
capitals, is more properly translated, Jehovah. 
According to some of the best Hebrew scholars, 
the name Jehovah (or " Yahveh," as some give 
it) "natively denotes not only God's eternal ex- 
istence, but also his unchangeable truth and om- 
nipotent power." It is, as it were, God's "prop- 
er name," and especially sets forth his eternal 
and immutable existence. It therefore teaches 



JEHOVAH SUPREME. 67 

that lie is "before all things, and by him all 
things consist;" that all things were made by 
him, and all life proceeds from him. The first 
ground of God's claim to supreme worship is, 
then, that he is the First of all beings, the Auth- 
or of all life. "In him we live and move and 
have our being." "His greatness is unsearch- 
able;" and he whose mind and heart are most 
cultivated, who is best informed as to God's 
works and ways, will have the highest and 
truest conceptions of the infinite Jehovah, and 
will naturally yield to him the worship and ser- 
vice which he claims. Some of the most devout 
of men have been those whose lives have been 
largely given to the study of nature; " The heav- 
ens declare the glory of God, and the earth show- 
eth his handiwork." King of kings, Lord of 
lords, Soul of all life, Author of our existence, 
has he not the right to say, "Thou shall have 
no other gods before me"? 

The second ground on which the claims for su- 
preme worship to Jehovah are based, is his 
covenant: "I am Jehovah, thy God." Moses 
calls the tables of stone the " tables of the cove- 
nant." In Deuteronomy, 5:2,3, he uses these 
words, "The Lord our God made a covenant 
with us in Horeb . The Lord made not this cove- 
nant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who 
are all of us here alive this day . " That covenant 
was made with the Israelitish nation; and bv 



68 JEHOVAH SUPREME. 

reason of it, every Israelite enjoyed certain privil- 
eges. But God had previously made a covenant 
with Abraham, the father of that nation, and the 
blessings of that covenant continued to his de- 
scendants. That Abrahamic covenant was the 
seed of which the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the 
fruit. The New Testament, as we call it, is, 
more literally, the New Covenant. And this 
"better covenant which was established upon 
better promises," is that under which we are 
born; its privileges and promises, its light and 
life, its comfort and hope, have made us all 
Christians, as distinguished from heathens, or 
Mohammedans, or followers of any other false 
faith. But God has claims to our supreme ser- 
vice, growing out of these covenant blessings. 
Let us not forget the love manifested to us as it 
is expressed in the Savior's words, " This is my 
blood of the new covenant, which is shed for 
many, for the remission of sins." Truly the 
Lord may say to every one of us "I am Jehov- 
ah, thy God." Will each of us reply, " Lord, I 
am thy servant, thy worshiper"? 

One more ground of Jehovah's claims to su- 
preme love, is stated: " Which have brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of 
bondage." In other words, God's care, as man- 
ifested in his providence, his deliverance of the 
people from their afflictions and dangers, his 
provision of manna to supply their daily need, 



JEHOVAH SUPREME. 69 

his guiding pillar — cloud by day and fire by night 
— these great blessings called for the fullest love 
and heartiest service of his ancient people. But 
are not we as greatly indebted to the same God 
for many deliverances, for an unfailing supply of 
our " daily bread," for guidance during the years 
of our life's journey, for protection from a thous- 
and threatening ills ? Not only the Christian, but 
every man who will enter upon an honest re- 
view of the mercies of his life, will be led to say, 
' Hitherto hath the Lord been my helper." The 
Son of God taught that our Heavenly Father 
"maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the jnst and the un- 
just," and that he is "kind unto the unthank- 
ful and to the evil." Our daily mercies have 
come though we have not thanked the Giver or 
recognized his existence. Is it not time we 
should become thoughtful, thankful, penitent, 
godly? Our lives have been constantly under 
God's care. For this reason, we ought to ac- 
knowledge Jehovah as supreme. The three reas- 
ons, then, for our observing this first command- 
ment, are, God's nature, his covenant, and his 
providence. By this three-fold cord of creation, 
redemption, preservation, let us bind ourselves 
to the duty of worshiping and serving him who 
is "God alone." 

The frequent violations of this commandment 
by the ancient Israelites are so familiar to all 



70 JEHOVAH SUPREME. 

readers of the Bible that it is unnecessary to en- 
large upon them . We are more concerned in con- 
sidering how we worship and serve ''other 
gods." Those untutored — or, rather, ill-taught 
— ancients believed in many gods; "But to us 
there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, 
by whom are all things, and we by him." We 
have no belief in any other god except Jehovah, 
yet we are often guilty of substituting some per- 
son or object in the place the true God should oc- 
cupy. Are we supremely selfish ? Then we wor- 
ship our own mean selves. Are our hearts' best 
affections placed on some loved one for whose 
sake we live and labor, and without whom life 
would be unmeaning and undersirable ? Then 
have we ' ' changed the glory of the incorruptible 
God into an image made like to corruptible 
man," and have "worshiped and served the 
creature more than the Creator." Are we 
worldlings, worshiping at the shrine of Mam- 
mon? Trury has it been said, " Gold is the only 
power which receives universal homage. It is 
worshiped in all lands without a single temple, 
and by all classes without a single hypocrite. ' ' A 
startling truth dwells in that oft-quoted expres- 
sion of Washington Irving, "The Almighty 
Dollar." If we put genius, culture, pleasure, 
science, nature, any object of admiration or pur- 
suit of life, into the first place, which God claims 



JEHOVAH SUPREME. 71 

for himself, we are violators of this command- 
ment. Let us give to all proper objects a place 
in our thought, our affections, our service; but 
let us give them their proper place, as the good 
gifts of our kind Father. Let us love him more 
for these gifts of his love. Let us give Jehovah 
the best place in our affections, and he will give 
us the best place in the universe, heaven, as our 
eternal home. 



72 



IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN: or, THE SECOND 
COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus 20:4-0. 

The text prohibits the making or the using of 
images as objects of worship or aids to wor- 
ship. The word idolatry means the worship of 
images or representations. This commandment 
is, therefore, special^ aimed at idolat^, which 
has been, and is, the most common method of 
worship. The great majority of men are so 
grossly material, so unspiritual, that they want 
something visible to represent the invisible Being 
whom they adore. Shortly after this command- 
ment was spoken from Sinai, the Israelites, en- 
camped at the foot of the mount that had 
burned and shaken with the presence of Jeho- 
vah, said to Aaron, "Up, make us gods which 
shall go before us. 7 ' Moses was in the mount, 
receiving from God the "patterns of things in 
the heavens," according to which the " tent of 
meeting" was to be constructed, and the wor- 
ship of God ordered. Moses stood to the peo- 
ple as the representative of Jehovah. His long 
absence made them uneasy, and they seemed to 
fear he would not return. No other man could 



IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN. 73 

take his place: hence they wanted a god, or 
gods, made, that they might have some visible 
representation of God. No doubt the mass of 
the people worshiped the image, or idol, that 
Aaron made, without considering it as only an 
image; for after Aaron had made the golden 
calf (an Egyptian form of idol), the people said, 
"These be thy gods, Israel, which brought 
thee out of the land of Egypt." Aaron looked 
upon it differently, for he "made proclamation 
and said, 'To-morrow is a feast to Jehovah.'" 
But when the feast-day came, the people offered 
sacrifices to the idol, and engaged in the usual 
immoral practices of idolatrous worship. 

In this signal, speedy and daring violation of 
the second commandment, we may see the gross 
character of the people, and we may also learn 
some of the reasons underlying this prohibition. 
The first reason is that the worshiper is sure to 
consider the image as possessing, more or less, 
the nature of a god: it localizes his deity; his. 
imagination endows it with supernatural pow- 
ers; he looks upon his idol not only as a sacred 
obiect, but as a superior being. It is impossible 
for a worshiper to use any image to aid him in 
worship, without its becoming somewhat essen- 
tial to his worship, and, therefore, possessed of 
some superhuman or talismanic, if not divine, 
power. This is true of a crucifix, as well as of 
a golden calf. A second reason comes to light 



74 IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN. 

in the incident referred to, namely, idolatry and 
immorality are almost inseparable. The rites 
and the accompaniments of idolatrous worship 
in the ancient world were such as would almost 
make an idol blush. There is a philosophy un- 
derlying this connection of debased morals with 
debasing" superstition. Both are forms of sen- 
sualism, animalism. No one can have low 
thoughts of God and high thoughts of man; no 
man can be spiritual who worships a material 
god. This is one of the evident results of creed 
on conduct, of worship on character. A man is 
more surely known by the god he worships than 
by the company he keeps. 

In the fourth chapter of Deuterononry, Moses 
gives a third reason for the prohibition of idols. 
tk Ye saw no manner of similitude on the day 
that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of 
the midst of the fire. ' ' These words are followed 
by an explicit warning against the use of graven 
images. Though Sinai quaked and burned, 
though darkness and tempest, trumpet-blast 
and mighty voice, proved that God was there, 
yet no form appeared; there was nothing seen 
of the Almighty which would make it possible 
to represent him by any image. And this reason 
against the use of idols is a proof of the spiritu- 
ality of God. We are familiar with the doctrine 
which the Savior put into the words, " God is a 
Spirit "; but we can see that the same truth was 



IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN. 75 

revealed to the idolatrous Israelites fifteen hun- 
dred years before these words were spoken by 
our Master. 

May we not profitably spend a few minutes 
in considering this great doctrine, that runs 
through all the Bible? What a lofty conception 
of God it affords us. He can not be represented 
by any image, for nothing of his material crea- 
tion is like him. He is not material, and, there- 
fore, he is not limited to any locality. Though 
he honored the tabernacle and the temple by the 
" cloud of glory " and by the shekinahthat man- 
ifested his presence, he was not less really pres- 
ent in other places. Though he now meets his 
people in their assemblies for his worship, he is 
as truly everywhere, listening to words of pray- 
er and voice of blasphemy, and working contin- 
ually in providence and nature, as well as in 
grace. 

If God is a Spirit, then man is a spirit, for 
man is made to worship God and to commune 
with him. We have bodies, but we are spirits. 
Jehovah is called by Moses, "The God of the 
spirits of all flesh." Paul argues from man's 
spirituality the Spirituality of God: " Foras- 
much as we are the offspring of God, we ought 
not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, 
or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's de- 
vice." Alas! how many there are who forget 
their own true nature; who seem to have a 



76 IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN. 

"downright appetite to mix with mud;" who 
never forget their bodies, but seldom think of 
their souls; who close their eyes only to sleep, 
never close them to commune with the invisible 
God. If such men would only spend five min- 
utes a day alone, thinking of God, of their own 
higher nature, they would soon, by listening, 
hear God speaking to their spirits, and they 
would soon begin to speak to God in prayer. 
Unsaved friend, dare you try the experiment? 

If man is a spirit, and is thus related to God, 
then there is a spiritual world where we shall 
have as real an existence as that we now pos- 
sess. Our mode of existence will be changed, 
but consciousness will continue without inter- 
ruption. Does that bring an unwelcome truth, 
because you have not cultivated your spiritual 
nature, and because the thought of death is al- 
ways unpleasant to you? Then it is surely time 
for you to be getting ready for the journey' we 
all must make. 

As the first commandment is preceded by a 
statement which gives the grounds on which it 
rests, so the second commandment is followed 
by some words showing God's strong disap- 
proval of idolatr\% and his kindness to those 
who prove their love to him by keeping his com- 
mandments. "For I, the Lord thy God, am a 
jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers 
upon the children unto the third and fourth gen- 



IDOLATRY FORBIDDEN. 77 

eration of them that hate me; and showing- 
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and 
keep my commandments." No man can sin 
against God without involving his descendants 
in the results of his sin. Providence and nature 
corroborate the seemingly harsh threat just 
quoted. But notice how " Mercy rejoiceth 
against judgment": Jehovah shows mercy to 
thousands, or, to the thousandth generation of 
them that love him. Be it ours to heed, for our 
children's sake, as well as for our own, the 
words of the Lord Jesus, " God is a Spirit: and 
they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth." 



78 



PROFANE SWEARING: or, THE THIRD 
COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus 20:7. 

The words of this commandment contain 
both prohibition and penalty: " Thou shalt not 
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for 
the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
his name in vain." 

Let us define our terms. An irreverent or un- 
necessary use of God's name, without a "by," is 
so near our subject as to be practically one with 
it. Good Christian people are sometimes heard 
in common conversation to sa}^ "Good Lord," 
" The Lord knows," " Lordy," and other similar 
expressions, used as flippantly as if the 'Great 
Name" did not command that reverence which 
is so becoming to us. A colored waiter, attend- 
ing to the wants of a very profane gentleman at 
the table, was seen to make a very low bow at 
every oath. Being asked the reason, he replied: 
" Massa, I nebber hear that Great Name but it 
fills my soul wid awe." The use of modified 
oaths is very common. People will swear b} T 
"Golly," "Gum," "Jericho," "Jerusalem," and 
the like, beginning with a letter of one of the 



PROFANE SWEARING. 79 

Divine Names, and then, as if ashamed or afraid 
to express the profanity that is in their thought, 
changing the rest of the word to suit their fancy 
or their custom. Some will "darn" a friend or 
foe, a person or a thing, who mean as much as 
others who use the orthodox word. Again, 
there are old and worn-out oaths which are of- 
ten used, either because they have lost the rough 
edge of their original profaneness, or in ignor- 
ance of the curse concealed beneath their ancient 
garb. But common oaths, in modern language, 
are used to so great an extent as to justify giv- 
ing them special attention . 

The antiquity and the prevalence of profane 
swearing demand notice. When Job's sons were 
away feasting, that patriarch offered sacrifices 
for them, fearing they might have cursed God in 
their hearts. That good boy, Joseph, learned in 
Egypt to swear "by the life of Pharoah," who 
was as much of a god as the common Egypt- 
ians knew anything of. Gehazi, Elijah's servant, 
started after Naaman, with his lie and his greed, 
saying, "As the Lord liveth, I will run after him 
and take somewhat of him . ' ' Peter emphasized 
his third denial of his Master, with an oath. 
Socrates only exhibits the custom of his time, 
in his oft-recurring "by Jupiter," or "by Juno." 
Chrysostom, a preacher among the early Chris- 
tians, rebukes profanity in no less than sixteen 
of his extant homilies. A friend who spent some 



80 PROFANE SWEARING. 

years as a missionar\^ in China, says that al- 
though vulgarity and obscenit\^ abound among 
the heathen, yet they are shocked by the profan- 
ity of nomin airy-Christian people. The clearer 
our knowledge of God, the greater seems to be 
the habit of profanit3 r . Our country is especial- 
ly cursed with the habit of cursing. Foreigners, 
coming to our shores, soon learn to swear in 
good English, though otherwise they talk very 
brokenly. 

Profane swearing shows ingratitude. He who 
" daily loadeth us with benefits " is disregarded, 
and practically despised. He who bought us 
with his blood, is treated as though his name 
were a by-word instead of a refuge for sinners. 
We sing: 

"Jesus the Name high over all, 

In hell or earth or sky; 
Angels and men before it tall, 

And devils fear and fly;'' 

but that ' ' Name that is above ever\^ name ' ' in the 
heavenly courts, is used hy those whom Christ 
came to save, as if he were the enemy of the 
race. This is also an ungentlemanry habit. 
Usually this is acknowledged by refraining from 
oaths in the presence of ladies. One blatant 
swearer, who declared with an oath that he 
knew almost every language, was asked b}^ a 
lady who was riding in the same coach, if he un- 
derstood Gaelic. " Certainly." " Then will you 
be kind enough to swear in that language?" 
Swearing is a useless vice. No man's character 



PROFANE SWEARING. 81 

or estate is improved by it. It is, as Washing- 
ton characterized it, "mean and low, and with- 
out any temptation." The thief, the sensualist, 
serve the devil for pay; the common swearer 
serves him for nothing. Added to all these, 
swearing is a heaven-defying vice. What if God 
should take the swearer at his word? Instances 
are not wanting where it would seem this has 
been done. 

The effects of profaneness are evident. We 
may name, first, irreligiousness. No man can 
be in the habit of taking God's name in vain, 
without losing that deep reverence for Jehovah, 
which is needful to a worshiper. Men who curse, 
do not pra}'. Profane swearing paves the way 
for false swearing; perjury is easy to one who 
uses the Divine Name as an ordinary expletive. 
Centuries ago, Hierocles pointed out this ten- 
dency. General immorality results from the 
loosening of the religious bond by profaning 
God's Name. Thomas Paine said, "He who 
will swear, will also lie." Benjamin Franklin 
once buttoned his coat before passing through a 
crowed of swearers, saying he always guarded 
his pocket-book when among such men. Pro- 
fanity soon drives out reverence for God's law, 
and respect for human law T will survive but lit- 
tle longer. Thus w T e see that the interests of so- 
ciety and the w^eal of governments reverberate 
the voice that thundered from Sinai, "Thou 



82 PROFANE SWEARING. 

shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
vain." 

This prohibition implies a command to pray. 
God's name is to be used, but not in blasphemy; 
he is to be invoked, but not for curses on our en- 
emies; we are even to " pray for them that des- 
pitefully use "us. Not "in vain," but sincerely, 
reverentry, pra3'erfully, let us speak the name of 
God. Let us remember these solemn words of 
the Son of God, spoken in his "Sermon on the 
Mount," as a comment on this commandment 
given on Mount Sinai: 

"I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by 
heaven, for it is God's throne; nor b}- the earth, 
for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for 
it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt 
thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not 
make one hair white or black. But let 3 r our 
communication be, 'Yea, yea, Nay, nay,' for 
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." 



S3 



THE SIN OF IRREVERENCE: or, THE 
THIRD COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:7. 

This commandment, as was stated in the pre- 
ceding sermon, means something more than a 
prohibition of profane swearing. Of the many 
phases of the general subject, it seems fitting to 
select for special consideration that of Irrever- 
ence. 

God's Name is bound tip with mairy of those 
things usually called "sacred," and also with 
some things that ought to be regarded as sa- 
cred. The sin of irreverence is usually manifest- 
ed by a disregard of sacred things, sacred times, 
and sacred places. One of the common mani- 
festations of irreverence is in jesting with Scrip- 
ure: using the Word of God to point a joke. 
Even Christians, yes, even ministers of the 
Word, are sometimes at fault in this matter. 
To so use any portion of the Bible as to asso- 
ciate that portion in the mind of others with 
something ludicrous, or worse, is a breach of 
the third commandment that may injure others 
more than it injures the jester himself. The 
Psalmist wrote, " Thou hast magnified thy Word 



84 THE SIN OF IRREVERENCE. 

above all thy Name," which means, probably, 
that God's Word is the highest manifestation of 
himself which he had given to men. This was 
then true, and is now true except as the living 
Word, the Son of God, was a more complete 
manifestation than the written Word. Let us 
cultivate reverence for the Scriptures, and let us 
bear in mind that neglect of the Bible involves 
irreverence, for such neglect is treating theW T ord 
as if it were unworthy or unimportant. Rever- 
ence for the Book is not shown by keeping an 
elegant copy free from dust, but in cleansing our 
minds by frequent reading of the Bible. ' 4 Where- 
withal shall a young man cleanse his way? By 
taking heed thereto according to thy word." 

Disrespect for sacred places, persons and sea- 
sons, is an eruption from the same disease of 
irreverence. Unbecoming conduct in church, 
profaning the Lord's Day, making or singing 
parodies on hymns, fall under this head. How 
depraved or thoughtless must he be, who can 
travesty the most familiar of sacramental 
hymns, "Alas, and did my Savior bleed"? Yet 
many of us have been shocked by that very 
thing. We show irreverence, also, by despising 
God's works, complaining of the weather, mur- 
muring at his dealings with us. Once more, we 
rob God of his honor, in whole or in part, by 
our false views of his nature and attributes, 
when Scripture and reason furnish all necessary 



THE SIN OF IRREVERENCE. 85 

means for correcting our views. Says Lord 
Bacon: "It were better to have no opinion of 
God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy 
of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is con- 
tumely." We should have no small thoughts of 
the great God. 

The causes of irreverence deserve our notice. 
First comes thoughtlessness. We fall into an 
irreverent habit, and say and do many things of 
which we would not be guilty if we were to 
pause and think. Yet it is none the less a sin to 
be thoughtless on the most important subjects 
that can engage our attention. Infidelity and 
so-called " free- thinking " naturally bear the 
fruit of irreverence. Our free institutions engen- 
der or foster this vice in uncultured or unbal- 
anced minds. With such, liberty means license, 
equality means superiority. Moses enjoined his 
people not to revile their rulers, and commanded 
them to rise up before the hoary head. Our case 
proves the wisdom of these enactments, by 
showing that disrespect for age and office pro- 
duce disregard for God. Our lax family govern- 
ment is another cause. It will not do for us to 
complain of the strictness of our puritan fathers 
till we get part way back from the other ex- 
treme. It is suggestive, that in Greek, as also 
in Latin, the same word is used to express filial 
devotion and reverence for God. Our own word 
"piety " has this double sense. The breaking of 



86 THE SIX OF IRREVERENCE. 

the fifth commandment logically, naturally, 
leads to a disregard of the third. 

We inquire for the effects of the sin of irrever- 
ence. First, we name a general loosening of the 
ties which bind man to man . The sense of the evil 
and the danger of sin is destroyed by our disre- 
gard of him, the transgression of whose law is 
sin. Is there a "secret societ}-" known among 
us, which will receive an atheist to membership? 
Sa3 T s Macoy in his dictionary of Free-Masonry: 
" The s\ r mbolical letter 'G' — before which every 
true mason reverent^ uncovers his head — is a 
perpetual condemnation of profanity, impiety 
and vice." Washington, in his Farewell Address, 
used the following language: " Let us with cau- 
tion indulge the supposition that morality can 
be maintained without religion. Reason and 
experience both forbid us to expect that nation- 
al morality can prevail in the exclusion of relig- 
ious principle." As to the last part of this quo- 
tation, it may be observed that it is a states- 
man's comment on the re-iterated teaching of 
the Bible, so well expressed in the familiar text, 
"He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling 
in the fear of God." The "unjust judge," who 
"feared not God, neither regarded man,'' pre- 
sents a not uncommon blending of immorality 
and irreligion. The bearing of irreverence on 
the secret conduct of men is too evident to re- 
quire many words. A sense of God's presence, 



THE SIN OF IRREVERENCE. 87 

a feeling of individual responsibility, are neces- 
sary to that integrity of character which is 
the same in public as in private. How great a 
restraint is therefore wanting to him who has a 
habit of irreverence and forgets that he might 
always say with truth, " Thou, God, see'st me." 
One of our greatest statesmen, being asked to 
name the greatest thought that ever came into 
his mind, replied, "The thought of my personal 
responsibility to God." 



88 



THE SABBATH: or, THE FOURTH COM- 
MANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:8. 

"Remember the Sabbath da}', to keep it holy," 
is the form in which this commandment is usu- 
ally quoted. The word " Sabbath " is from the 
Hebrew, and means rest. The full text of this 
commandment includes the three verses follow- 
ing the text, and makes week-day labor as well 
as seventh-day rest a part of this Divine jjre- 
cept. The subject of labor is reserved for treat- 
ment b\ r itself, and a few general thoughts on 
the Sabbath will now claim our attention. 

The word "remember" calls the attention of 
the Israelites to an institution previously estab- 
lished, not now first promulgated. The tenth 
verse explains the matter by giving the follow- 
ing as the reason for the sacred observance of 
the Sabbath: "For in six daj'S the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them 
is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the 
Lord blessed the Sabbath da}^and hallowed it." 
In the second chapter of Genesis is stated this 
same reason for the sanctification of the seventh 
dav. 



THE SABBATH. 89 

Though the traces of the observance of the 
Sabbath previous to the deliverance of the Is- 
raelites from Egypt, are not so numerous and so 
clear as to convince all scholars, we may safely 
say, without entering into the argument, that 
the record in Genesis and the testimony of sa- 
cred and profane history show that the sancti- 
fying of the seventh day was not simply a Jew- 
ish institution. And this seems to be the nat- 
ural meaning of our Savior's words, " The Sab- 
bath was made for man." It was intended for 
the human race, not for the Hebrew nation 
alone. As all the other commandments are ap- 
plicable to all nations and all ages, it is unlikely 
that this should be local and temporary. 

The world-wide application of this command- 
ment is proved by the world-wide need for it. 
On the face of it, this appears an arbitrary pre- 
cept, unlike the character of the moral law; but 
a little study reveals the truth that man's high- 
est good is connected with the observance of 
the Sabbath. 

Man needs a seventh day of rest for his body. 
Physiologists by the hundreds, including many 
of the most eminent physicians in America and 
Europe, have borne testimony to the physical 
need of the Sabbath. Revolutionary France ab- 
rogated the Sabbath and instituted a hol- 
iday occurring once in ten days; but a 
short trial, and the testimony of French 



90 THE SABBATH. 

physicians that one rest-day in ten was not 
enough, led the nation back to the seventh- 
day rest. Not only the general experience of 
mankind, but the observation of the effects of a 
seventh day of rest on working animals, has 
shown the " sweet reasonableness" of this com- 
mandment. Experiments extending through 
many years on one of the most extensive stage- 
lines of Europe, where the observation included 
thousands of horses, proved that that animal 
can do more and better work when he is given a 
seventh day of rest, than when he is worked 
seven days a week; he not only does more in a 
week, but his laboring-years are increased b} r 
giving him a Sabbath. This is a remarkable 
confirmation of the physical necessity for the 
Sabbath and of the provision made for beasts 
of burden in the law. In connection with this 
commandment are these words: "The seventh 
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it 
thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy 
maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger 
that is within thy gates." 

Brain- workers need the Sabbath not less than 
those who are engaged in manual labor. Cole- 
ridge, Isaac Taylor, and other thinkers and au- 
thors, have testified to the benefit they derived 
from observing the Sabbath. Dr. W. B. Carpen- 
ter, of England, the eminent scientist, wrote to 



THE SABBATH. 91 

a friend, " My own experience is very strong as 
to the importance of the complete rest and 
change of thought once in the week." Dr. John 
W. Draper, in his "Human Physiology," empha- 
sizes the value of the Sabbath to all classes, but 
specially as giving rest to the brain. No doubt 
the health of many clergymen gives way be- 
cause they take no day in the week for rest from 
the brain- work and the anxiety of their calling. 
As their duties demand mental activity on the 
Lord's Day, they should unbend and rest their 
minds regularly on some other day of the week. 

The domestic and social advantages of the 
Sabbath are great. Many fathers seldom see 
their children awake during the six work-days. 
In some families, children are obliged to work to 
aid in earning a living. The Sabbath is a day 
of family re-union. The habit of resting, of 
washing up and dressing up, has a tendency to 
cultivate our social instincts, and to lessen the 
selfishness and worldliness produced by the 
"everlasting grind " of daily toil. 

The Sabbath is the poor man's friend. The 
labor-market is glutted. A weekly day of rest 
costs the poor man nothing, for, if the Sabbath 
were done away with, he would get no more for 
seven days' work than he now gets for six days' 
work. 

Added to these and other blessings of the Sab- 
bath is its moral and religious value. An emi- 



92 THE SABBATH. 

nent clergyman thinks nine-tenths of all Christ- 
ian work is done on the Sabbath. Certain it is 
that religious helps and privileges abound on 
that day. The preaching and teaching of God's 
Word, the meetings for prayer and religious 
counsel, the leisure for such reading and medita- 
tion as shall profit the soul, make the day well 
adapted for spiritual growth. The majority of 
men become more or less secularized during the 
six da\ 7 s of toil: the Sabbath reminds them of 
their moral and religious duties. The nourish- 
ment of men's spiritual life, and the continuance 
of the Church of Christ, are largely dependent 
on the maintenance and the right use of the 
Christian Sabbath. 

The secularization of the Sabbath is a great 
and growing evil. The process is not so much 
hy giving the day- to labor, as by devoting it to 
pleasure-seeking, thus making God's Holy Da}' 
man's holiday-. Multitudes seem to forget that 
the Sabbath is to be kept "holy," that God not 
only blessed the seventh day, but " sanctified it," 
that is, set it apart for a holy use. The observ- 
ance of a weekly holiday is not obedience to this 
commandment, but is a perversion of one of 
God's best gifts. The use for selfish and worldly 
purposes of this sacred day is a sin against God 
and a great injury to our own souls. We thus 
degrade life by using it all for our lower nature, 
and are in danger of forgetting our higher du- 



THE SABBATH. 93 

ties and of neglecting the great question of our 
eternal destiny. We can not use the Lord's Day 
in reading the Sunday papers and other secular 
or demoralizing literature, and feel that we have 
nourished our spiritual life. We can not give 
that day to the pursuit of pleasure without 
proving ourselves "lovers of pleasure rather 
than lovers of God.' 1 

The Christian church must continue to sound 
the alarm as to this degradation of holy time, 
and it must also see that the services of God's 
house and the example of God's people are in 
keeping with the letter and the spirit of this 
commandment. Let all, but especialry Christ- 
ians, listen to the Lord's words as recorded in 
the fifty-eighth of Isaiah: " If thou turn away 
thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy 
pleasure on my holy da} T ; and call the Sabbath 
a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and 
shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor 
finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine 
own words: then shalt thou delight tln^self in 
the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the 
high places of the earth, and feed thee with the 
heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of 
the Lord hath spoken it." 



94 



LABOR THE LAW OF LIFE: or, THE 
FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:9. 

This commandment enjoins rest, but it also 
directs tis to labor. Work is as necessary as 
worship: nay, work done in the right way and 
in the right spirit, is worship; for it is a part of 
the service of God. 

The words, "Six days shalt thou labor and 
do all thy work," follow immediately after the 
words, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy." And it is worthy of note that there is 
the same authority enjoining labor for six days, 
and prohibiting it on the seventh day. The 
Divine Law enwraps every day of life. In the 
truest sense, all days should be religious, and 
none secular. And true religion is better mani. 
fested by the proper observance of the moral 
law on the six work-days, than by the most 
careful attention to the ceremonial law on the 
Sabbath. The history of the world shows how 
easily religion degenerates into ritualism. It 
has been observed that on the Sabbath the offer- 
ings of the Jews were not different from those 



LABOR THE LAW OF LIFE. 95 

made on the other days, but that they were 
double the number or quantity, thus marking- 
the seventh day as "the day of days," without 
degrading the six days given to labor. And the 
Divine example is so referred to as to apply to 
work-days as well as to the rest-day: "For in 
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the sev- 
enth day." Had the Almighty always kept 
Sabbath, the universe would never have sprung 
into being. " My Father worketh hitherto, and 
I work," said the Master. There is a sacred- 
ness in toil when we study the example of the 
Divine Workman who fashioned the worlds, and 
of his Divine Son, known among his townsmen 
as "the carpenter." Physiologists assure us 
that the keeping of a seventh day of rest is in 
harmony with man's physical constitution. It 
was fitting, then, that the law written in man's 
nature should be engraved on the tables of 
stone. But those tables also record God's ordi- 
nance of labor. Let us examine this ordinance 
to see if " earth and heaven agree." 

The world is made ' in accordance with this 
law. Harvests of valuable grains do not grow 
spontaneously. The mineral wealth of the 
earth does not lie scattered over its surface. Al- 
most anything can be had for labor; little or 
nothing without it. Valuable mental and 
moral acquisitions must be made by effort. 



96 LABOR THE LAW OF LIFE. 

Truth and character do not lie around loose. 
The needs of man prove the law. Something to 
eat he must have. Shelter, clothing, home com- 
forts, are a necessity of civilized life. The law 
given by Paul, "If any man would not work, 
neither should he eat, "is of general application. 
A world of tramps and idlers would soon die 
out. The health and harmony of man's nature 
demand labor. Dyspepsia, gout, general debil- 
ity, are often God's mark on us for disobedience 
to the command of the text. The mind should 
be employed as well as the body. Man only 
gains a healthy and harmonious development by 
mental as well as physical labor. Literary men, 
as a class, are long-lived. The constitution of 
human society proves the law. We must not 
only "look out for number one," but for our 
families, friends, neighbors, everybody. Indeed, 
our own interests require that we labor for oth- 
ers that others may labor for us. It was true 
in a certain case, that " it took nine tailors to 
make a man." It takes the labor of more than 
ninety and nine to keep any one of us comforta- 
ble. We are dependent on the products of many 
trades and callings. 

This necessity of labor has not been produced 
by the "Fall." God put Adam in the garden to 
" dress it," before sin made labor a curse. Lazi- 
ness, not labor, is a result of sin. Some suppose 
laziness is "original sin." Sin has increased the 



LABOR THE LAW OF LIFE. 97 

vexations of labor. Toil and weariness are in 
one sense a curse, yet this curse of toil is rather 
a restraint on vice, than a punishment for sin. 
Idleness is the parent of almost all forms of vice. 
In the old fable, Satan is represented as chang- 
ing his bait to catch different kinds of men, but 
"the idler bit at the naked hook." A man can 
not long be a tramp and remain honest. The 
driver of a mule team withdrew from the church 
because "religion was incompatible with his 
vocation." Vagrancy and integrity are incom- 
patible. Let the burden of labor be lifted from 
the world, and more evils than were in Pan- 
dora's box would come upon society. It is the 
necessity of labor that prevents the utter over- 
throw of the foundations of society. 

The "Labor Question" will be more speedily 
solved if men give heed to the following points: 
First, the law of labor is universal. No man 
able to work has a right to be idle if employ- 
ment of brain or hand can be found. Secondly, 
the saying, "The world owes me a living" is 
false. The world is not in debt, but will pay a 
living to those who earn it. Thirdly, labor is 
not degrading, but ennobling, since it is obedi- 
ence to the Divine law. Lastly, employers and 
employed should be fellow-workers under a 
common law, recognizing their responsibility to 
the " Master in heaven." Sin is the worst toil. 
Christ furnishes'the only rest, the true Sabbath 



98 LABOR THE LAW OF LIFE. 

of the soul. Hear him: ''Come unto me all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden and I will give 
you rest. ' ' This is a work-day world. The Sab- 
bath of eternal rest awaits those who do the 
work of life so as to earn the Lord's "Well 
done." "Let us labor, therefore, to enter into 
that rest." 



99> 



FILIAL DUTIES: or, THE FIFTH COM- 
MANDMENT. 

Exodus, 23:12. 

The fifth commandment, "Honor thy father 
and thy mother," appertains to the duties be- 
tween superiors and inferiors, and is extended 
in the New Testament, as indeed by the law of 
Moses, to duties between masters and servants,, 
teachers and pupils, rulers and subjects. For 
our present purpose, we limit its signification to 
the meaning that lies on the surface. 

That we owe certain duties to our parents, is 
so clear a doctrine of natural religion, that all 
nations and all ages of the world have had 
something like a correct view of it. A degraded 
tribe in Africa has a saying like this. "Strike 
me, but do not speak ill of my mother." This 
commandment is an illustration of the Scriptur- 
al enforcement of duties discovered by the light 
of nature. Yet it is something more: it is a re- 
statement in plain language of a truth which 
needed to be brought more clearly before the 
mind of man. 

In our country, at this time, it would be well 
to have this law, which was delivered amid the. 



100 FILIAL DUTIES. 

thunderings and lightnings of Sinai, taken up 
by pulpit and press. Certainly we have, in this 
matter, got clear ahead of the Bible. (We area 
"fast" people.) There once occurred a case in 
which, by peculiar intermarriages, a child be- 
came his own grandfather. But there are many 
instances in our own lax-governed homes, where 
a boy is, to all practical purposes, his father's 
father, and hence his own grandfather. 

The word "honor," used in the text, is very 
weighty and comprehensive. It certainly in- 
cludes obedience. It is a wise plan of the All- 
Father, which has so constituted human rela- 
tions that age and experience, which can not be 
transmitted to our children, may yet be avail- 
able to them early in life, by parental counsel 
and authority. The most unquestioning obed- 
ience is the truest wisdom, as well as the duty, 
of our early 3^ears. Obedience, to be of any 
value, must be cheerful and hearty. Respect and 
deference, in word and action, are taught by the 
text. No child should ever manifest disrespect 
for his parents, or allow others to speak against 
them in his presence, without reproof. All such 
titles as "the old man," "the governor," "the 
old woman," are to be avoided. There is no 
prescribed limit at which this duty may cease. 
When we attain our majority, when we settle in 
life, it is God's order that then "shall a man 
leave his father and his mother, and shall clea\^e 



FILIAL DUTIES. 101 

unto his wife." Still we should look to them for 
counsel, and in every way show our respect. 
Especially should we provide, if necessary, for 
the comfortable and respectable maintenance of 
our parents, should they live to be old. How 
sad that some men, having secured culture, posi- 
tion, wealth, by the toils and sacrifices of their 
parents, should be ashamed of the plain and un- 
couth ways of those to whom, under God, they 
owe all that they are. Such cases show the 
need of Solomon's caution, " Despise not thy 
mother when she is old." Those hands are mis- 
shapen, those limbs are rheumatic, that form is 
bowed, because your interests were dearer than 
comfort and ease to your mother. Your father 
is poor, because he has spent what would now 
be a fortune, for your support and education. 
Cheer their declining days by every means within 
your power. It must not be forgotten that we 
owe all the duties named, not on account of the 
excellences and virtues of our parents, but be- 
cause of their relation to us. 

The reasons for thus honoring our parents 
are, first, that God's Word has made it our 
duty. Not only has this duty been exalted to 
the front rank by making it the subject of one 
of the ten commandments, but in various places 
in Scripture, and in many ways, this duty is 
urged upon us. The law and the gospel, pre- 
cept and promise, blessing and cursing, good 



102 FILIAL DUTIES. 

and evil examples, prove the importance of this 
subject. Paul calls this "the first command- 
ment with promise." The promise is, "That 
thy days may be long upon the land which the 
Lord thy God giveth thee." To this the addi- 
tion is made, in the fifth of Deuteronomy , " That 
it may go well with thee." The descendants of 
Jonadab the son of Rechab, were commended 
for filial obedience, and a blessing pronounced 
on them which, it would seem, has not yet, 
after 2,500 years, spent its force. Justice and 
gratitude join with the Bible in enforcing this 
duty. We owe more to our parents than we 
can ever repay; more than we can ever know or 
appreciate, unless we watch over the helpless 
infancy, inexperienced childhood, headstrong 
youth, of those who call us father or mother. 
But for the incessant care, the unwearied love, 
the almost infinite patience, of your parents, 
the life God gave you through them would long 
ago have ceased, or have become a curse. Let 
David's sad lament over rebellious Absalom tell 
the quenchless fire of a father's love. Let Rizpah, 
watching all summer, her bed the rock, her cov- 
ering sackcloth, to see that bird and beast 
should not devour the bodies of her sons who 
were hanged, speak of the undying affection of 
a mother. Oh! you whose parents still linger 
on earth, make haste to ask their pardon for 
your ingratitude, neglect and disobedience. 



FILIAL DUTIES. 103 

Give them no further need of that sad reflection, 
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, to 
have a thankless child." 

The disregard of this duty is sure to produce 
general insubordination. The law of the land 
will be defied by those who do not submit to the 
law of home. The future historian, should he 
be compelled to write ' ' The Decline and Fall of 
the American Republic," will no doubt point a 
moral by showing how the lawlessness which 
produced our national ruin, had its birth in 
families, and, having attained its full propor- 
tions, overturned the temple of liberty, perish- 
ishing itself in the ruin it had wrought. 

The religious bearing — perhaps it were better 
to say the religious nature — of this command- 
ment is evident. Note the place of this subject 
in the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments are 
usually divided into "two tables," the first 
table relating to our duty to God, the second 
covering our various duties to our fellow-men. 
It is generally considered that the first four com- 
mandments teach our duty to God. This divis- 
ion puts the duty of honoring our parents at 
the head of all our duties to men, it being taught 
in the first commandment of the second table. 
In the very next chapter of Exodus, are these 
words: "He that curseth his father or his 
mother shall surely be put to death." Our Sav- 
ior quoted these words in connection with the 



104 FILIAL DUTIES. 

fifth commandment, when he rebuked the 
Pharisees for saying that a man might be freed 
from his duty to his parents by devoting his life 
to religious pursuits. Nay, more: our Savior 
honored this commandment by observing it. 
Though he was able, at the age of twelve years, 
to interest and astonish the Jewish teachers by 
"his understanding and answers," yet, when 
Mary and Joseph "found him in the temple, sit- 
ting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
them, and asking them questions, 1 ' the record 
tells us, "He went down with them, and came 
to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." And 
how sublime was his conduct, when, on the 
cross, he provided for the future comfort of his 
mother by putting her in the care of the beloved 
John. 

Some theologians consider this commandment 
the last in the first table, thus making five in 
each table, and classing the honoring of our 
parents with our duties to God. In several 
places in the Bible our duty to our parents ap- 
pears to be taught as religious, rather than 
moral. It is classed with the fourth command- 
ment in Leviticus 19:3: "Ye shall fear every 
man his mother and his father, and keep my 
Sabbaths." There are several remarkable ex- 
pressions as to the religiousness of this duty, in 
Paul's epistles. In Ephesians we read, "Chil- 
dren, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is 



FILIAL DUTIES. 105 

right." In Colossians the duty is thus set 
forth: "Children, obey your parents in all 
things; foi this is well-pleasing unto the Lord." 
In the fifth chapter of his first letter to Timo- 
thy, the apostle throws a flood of light on this 
phase of the subject. I will quote from the Re- 
vised Version, as it brings out the thought with 
great distinctness: "But if any widow have 
children or grandchildren, let them learn first to 
show piety towards their own family, and to 
requite their parents: for this is acceptable in 
the sight of God." Thus is filial duty made the 
beginning of, and so a part of, our duty to God. 
To parents, I commend, in this connection, 
these words from F. W. Robertson's thirty- 
second lecture on Corinthians: "Again, there is 
another mistake made by those who demand 
the love of God from a child. The time does 
come to every child, as it came to the childhood 
of Christ, when the love of the earthly parent 
is felt to be second to the love of the Heavenly 
Father; but this is not the first, ' for that is not 
first which is spiritual, but that which is nat- 
ural.' It is true, there have been cases where 
children have given striking proof of love to 
God, but these, even to a proverb, die young, 
because they are precocious, unnatural, forced; 
and God never forces character. For a time the 
father represents God, is in the place of God to 
the child. He is to train the affections which 



106 FILIAL DUTIES. 

afterwards shall be given to God; and the 
brother those which shall expand hereafter for 
Christ. Like the trellis round which the tendrils 
clasp till they are fit to transplant, so are the 
powers of love within the child supported and 
strengthened as he leans upon his father, till 
they are mature enough to stand alone for God, 
And you can not reverse this without great 
peril to the child's spiritual nature." 



10 






THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE: ok, THE 
SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:13. 

The sixth commandment reads: "Thou shalt 
not kill." We too often assume that nothing is 
forbidden, except murder in the first degree. 
But the very letter of the law, to say nothing of 
its spirit, is adverse to such restriction. This 
prohibition includes what is commonly called 
murder, as also self-murder, or suicide. In the 
light of the Mosaic code, we know that capital 
punishment, inflicted by lawful authority, is not 
forbidden; nor is it unlawful to take the life of a 
fellow-man when necessary for self-defense. The 
laws of God and man authorize us to kill a man 
who is discovered breaking into our house in 
the night. 

Some of the wisest and most virtuous of the 
ancient Romans taught that suicide is justifia- 
ble, as a man has control of his own life, and 
may end it when he pleases. Not a few of the 
best men of those times left the world by their 
own choice and their own hand. Indeed, some 
believed and taught that suicide is a virtue. 



108 SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 

The text, in common with many other Scripture 
passages, puts a value and a sacredness on life. 
It recognizes God as the Author of life, and con- 
siders his gift as too valuable to be thrown 
away. And as we did not give life to ourselves, 
we have no right to take our own lives. Let it 
be said of us when we have left the world, " The 
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." 
Consider the reason attached to God's command 
to Noah: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by 
man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of 
God made he man." It would be well for us to 
try to discover how much we owe to the Bible 
for our clearest views of the sanctity of life. 
And it would be well for us who would never 
think of taking our own lives or the lives of 
others, by any summary process, to quit our 
killing by inches. Let us not forget that life is 
mainly valuable because we are here to prepare 
for the Hereafter. Man is great because he is 
immortal. Sin is great, because we are account- 
able. 

This commandment is violated as regards 
one's own life, by the intemperate. Alcohol as 
a beverage is a foe to life. It not only cuts short 
one's days, but, in many cases, makes a man as 
good as dead while his life continues. Intem- 
perance in eating shortens life. The Bible puts 
drunkards and gluttons into the same list. 
When the crusade against rum and tobacco has 



SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 109 

resulted in sweet breath, clean mouths and clear 
brains for all, we may gather the forces for an 
attack on the kitchen and the dining-room. 
For not only gluttony, but carelessness and ig- 
norance in the preparation and use of food, are 
hurrying us to our graves. Sensuality in all its 
forms rots out the life of body and soul. Over- 
work, of brain or muscle, is a sin against life. 
How many have been buried in cemeteries or in- 
sane asylums by allowing their business to over- 
draw on their time and strength. How often 
has the insane greed for gold, urging a man be- 
yond his powers, leading him to deny himself of 
needed rest and sleep, snapped the brittle thread 
of life. The excitement of politics has destroyed 
some of our ablest statesmen. Ignorance of the 
laws of life and health is, in our day and coun- 
try, a breach of this commandment. How 
many intelligent people know nothing of the 
anatomy of their bodies or of the functions of 
their different parts, or of the nature of the dif- 
ferent articles of daily food. A little time spent 
in learning that the human race have stomachs 
and not gizzards, and a few other practical les- 
sons in anatomy, physiology and hygiene, would 
prolong the lives of many people. Unhealthy 
modes of dress may make one look "killing," 
but they are killing in a literal sense. Fool- 
hardiness in exposing ourselves to unnecessary 
danger, violates this law. To risk life to save 



110 SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 

life, or to save anything more valuable than 
life, is noble; but he who rushes into danger 
needlessly is guilty. The man who loses his life 
in attempting to rescue a drowning man does a 
noble act. But. he. who is drowned in attempt- 
ing, for money or fame, an almost impossible 
feat in swimming, or a "Sam-Patch" plunge, 
goes into the next world guilty of his own 
blood. 

As concerns the lives of our fellow-men, this 
law is broken b3 r liquor-dealers . Such deal out 
poison by the glass, and kill people piecemeal. 
Two centuries ago there was a poisoning mania 
in some portions of Europe. Charles Mackay 
has written a sketch on the subject, entitled, 
" The Slow Poisoners." The power of law and 
the wrath of the people at last put a stop to 
this nefarious business. "In the 21st year of 
Henry VIII an act was passed, rendering it 
high treason. Those found guilty of it, were to 
be boiled to death." How strange that places 
for slow poisoning should be suffered, and even 
patronized by the people, and licensed by the 
State. Careless railroad men, dishonest archi- 
tects and builders, incompetent druggists and 
physicians are also guuty. What utter disre- 
gard of human life is exhibited by all such. 
What horrible accounts have we all read of 
deaths caused by reckless trainmen. Could the 
dead speak, some physicians, unworthy of their 



SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. Ill 

high calling, would be accused of murder. 
What a holocaust of human victims is occasion- 
ally offered in some church, hall, or theater, on 
account of the dishonesty or the criminal neg- 
lect of proprietors and builders. How many 
have been burned alive in public places because 
of insufficient provision for a speedy egress, or 
because the doors opened inward instead of out- 
ward. Fond mothers sacrifice their children for 
the sake of exhibiting their charms. A physi- 
cian of eminence has estimated that an appall- 
ing number of children die each year from the 
exposure of their beautiful little arms. Unnat- 
ural mothers guilty of ante-natal murder, as 
also all the abettors of their crime, have a terri- 
ble reckoning to meet. 

The indulgence of hatred, revenge, and kin- 
dred passions, is expressly forbidden in the Bible, 
as belonging to the same class of sins. " Who- 
soever hateth his brother is a murderer." "Ye 
have heard that it was said by them of old 
time, 'Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall 
kill shall be in danger of the judgment;' but I 
say unto you, that whosoever is angry with 
his brother without a cause shall be in danger 
of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to 
his brother, ' Raca, ' shall be in danger of the coun- 
cil: but whosoever shall say, 'Thou fool' shall be 
in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring 
thy gift to the altar, and there rememberestthat 



112 SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 

tlry brother hath aught against thee, leave there 
thy gift before the altar, and go thy way: first 
be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and 
offer thy gift." Notice how the Savior in these 
words changes the negative to a positive; he 
teaches not only that wrong feelings and wrong 
words are a violation of the sixth command- 
ment, but that we must cultivate brotherliness, 
and that we must be reconciled to our brother 
before our offering to God will be acceptable. 

There is such a thing as soul-murder. Every 
man who destroys or injures the spiritual life of 
a fellow-being, is guilty of soul-murder. In a 
measure, Christians who fail in their dut\^ to 
others, are responsible for the spiritual death 
that accompanies and follows sin, in all whom 
their neglect involves. And how many are 
guilty as soul-suicides. Willfully and knowingly, 
if not purposely, they destroy their own souls; 
the}^ "choose death rather than life," and lose 
the life of heaven hy refusing to lead a heavenly 
life on earth. 



113 



MARRIAGE AND HOME: or, THE SEVENTH 
COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:14. 

The words, "Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery," are a condemnation and a prohibition of 
the sin of impurity in all its forms and in every 
degree; but the worst form and the highest de- 
gree of that sin are specially named in the text. 
This commandment is, therefore, particular^ 
designed to guard the oldest of God's institu- 
tions for the human race, and the sacred spot 
where that institution flourishes — of course I 
refer to Marriage and Home. 

The Bible speaks, perhaps, more frequently 
and more emphatically on this subject than on 
any other pertaining to the conduct of life. The 
scriptural account of the origin of marriage 
may be found in the second chapter of Genesis. 
The Savior's appeal to this account, and his 
comments on it, are recorded in the nineteenth 
chapter of Matthew. 

It is evident that marriage is divinely or- 
dained. " It is not good that the man should be 
alone; I will make him a help meet for him," that 



114 MARRIAGE AND HOME. 

is, a help suited to him: woman is the exact 
complement and counterpart of man; sex is 
manifest even in mind. Our God-given instincts 
are in harmony with this law of the Bible. The 
purest, fullest love, is that which issues in mar- 
riage, and, abiding the test of closest intimacy, 
proves itself perpetual. In the light of Bible 
teaching, we may discover the mistake of those 
who devote themselves to a life of celibacy under 
the impression that only thus can superior sanc- 
tity be obtained. The religion of the Bible is 
not a religion of asceticism. St. Paul warns us 
against these delusions. He declares that it is a 
work of those who "depart from the faith, giv- 
ing heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of 
devils," to forbid marriage and command to 
abstain from meats. "Marriage is honorable 
in all," is a text which religious celibates seem 
to have overlooked. We can easily see, from 
the standpoint of this primeval institution, that 
"single blessedness " is, as a rule, " single wretch- 
edness." Of course this rule has its exceptions, 
and old bachelors who are not "crusty," and 
old maids who are not "sour," are to be found. 
And let it be remembered that the law of mar- 
riage is not for children who are unable to care 
for themselves, but for those sufficient^ mature 
to undertake the responsibilities of a home and 
family. 
True marriage is a union between one man 



MARRIAGE AND HOME. 115 

and one woman. The original institution is not 
at all in accord with polygamy, or polyandry, 
or promiscuous concubinage. As stated by 
Moses and restated by our Lord, the " one flesh " 
is composed of one husband and one wife. To 
say nothing of the evils of polygamy, we may 
simply note the remarkable fact of the numeri- 
cal equality of the sexes. This equality is next 
door to absolute in all parts of the world. 
More males than females are born, but the ex- 
posure of the former reduces their number to a 
trifle less than that of the other sex at maturity. 
Thus God in Providence confirms the law of his 
Word. 

Marriage is the most sacred, intimate, and 
binding, of all human relationships. " There- 
fore shall a man leave his father and his mother, 
and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be 
one flesh." St. Paul writes, "So ought men to 
love their wives as their own bodies. He that 
loveth his wife, loveth himself." Such being the 
nature of this union, it is commonplace to 
say that personal appearance, social position, 
wealth, are not sufficient basis for entering upon 
this holy estate. The man who, being asked 
whom he married, replied, after hesitating some- 
what, " I married— let me see— $30,000— I forget 
her other name," is as good a specimen as we 
can expect to find of those who marry for sordid 
motives. We cannot delay to mention all the 



116 MARRIAGE AND HOME. 

qualifications for marriage, but it is safe to re- 
mark that a hasty marriage is likely to be an 
unhappy one. An old-fashioned courtship, run- 
ning as long as the old-fashioned consumption, 
is not desirable. Yet too much of modern court- 
ship may be justly denominated " sparking by 
steam. ' ' The choice of a husband or wife should 
be a question demanding our best judgment as 
well as our best love. Else we may verify the 
old saying, "Marry in haste; repent at your 
leisure." Still, other things being equal, com- 
paratively earfy marriages are to be commended. 
The tastes, habits of thought and action, will be 
more easily modified and assimilated in such 
cases than when one's ways have become stereo- 
t}-ped by age. 

This union is to be for life: "What, therefore, 
God hath joined together, let not man put a- 
sunder." It were easy to show how disobedi- 
ence to this law of the perpetuity of the mar- 
riage bond, fosters and engenders licentiousness, 
divides and ruins families, and disintegrates hu- 
man society. On Christian grounds, the tie can 
be dissolved only by adultery or death. Were 
Ave to keep this high standard before us, more 
caution would be exercised in consummating 
this union, more forbearance would be exercised 
by husbands and wives, and children would be 
saved from the fearful evils flowing from the 
separation or divorce of their parents. Lax 



MARRIAGE AND HOME. 117 

divorce legislation has produced a terrible fruit- 
age of severed families and social disease. Great 
is the responsibility of those who frame laws 
making the dissolution of the marriage compact 
as easy as that of any commercial copartner- 
ship. No Christian should avail himself of un- 
christian legislation. True, "the hardness of 
men's hearts " may put in a plea now as w^ell as 
3,000 years ago, but we must not forget that it 
is high time the civilized world passed out from 
its childhood. It will be a boon to society when 
the civil contract implied in marriage, shall rec- 
ognize the Divine origin and the perpetuity of 
the marriage tie. 

Marriage is the foundation of home. What a 
magic is in the word Home! The dictionary 
cannot define it; brains cannot comprehend it; 
only with the heart can we "read between the 
lines," and discover its full significance. What 
memories crowd upon us at the mention of this 
word. Greatly as surroundings differ, yet our 
early home has attractions possessed by no 
other spot on earth. It was there that our en- 
trance into life was hailed with gladness. There 
with tenderest care the helpless young life was 
nourished. There, when those diseases and ac- 
cidents to which children are heirs, called for 
unremitting attention, loving eyes watched us 
day and night; sensitive ears heard every breath 
we drew; instinctive love anticipated our every 



118 MARRIAGE AND HOME. 

want; the voice of prayer ascended to heaven 
on our behalf. Perhaps death has sealed those 
eyes and stilled those hearts. Yet the memory 
is sweet, though sad. Home provides for the 
sustenance and comfort of many years of early 
life, "without money and without price." Toil 
and care are unceasing, that children may be 
fed, clothed, sheltered and educated. Home is a 
kingdom where the word of father or mother is 
law, just when we need a "strong central gov- 
ernment. ' ' Hot-blooded and inexperienced, how 
great the need that youth should know the re- 
straints of home. As we review our early days, 
how grateful we are for the checks and chastise- 
ments which have saved us from so much sin 
and suffering. Small wonder that the "street 
Arabs ' ' of our large cities become the degraded 
and dangerous men who defy all law. They are 
thrust out to care for themselves when they 
most need care. Home is a miniature world, in 
which may be cultivated all those graces that 
make life pleasant. There we learn our first les- 
sons in unselfishness. There we are taught to 
respect the rights of others. There we learn the 
amenities of life, and find a practical illustration 
of the Christian charity which thinks it "more 
blessed to give than to receive." 

I know I have been sketching, to a good ex- 
tent, an ideal home. Of course the average 
home is far from perfect. There are sad excep- 



MARRIAGE AND HOME. 119 

tions to the saying, "There is no place like 
home." But the tendency of true marriage is to 
create a true home. And home has no real foun- 
dation but in the institution of marriage. A 
bachelor may have a "hall," but has nothing- 
worthy of the name of home. It is a life-union 
between one man and one woman, which leads 
them to found a home. It is marriage which 
renders children an honor instead of a disgrace. 
It is the commonness of interest in their chil- 
dren, that produces mutual forbearance between 
husband and wife. It is love for their offspring 
which incites them to the little kindnesses and 
the great sacrifices that typify the providence 
and love of our Heavenly Father. It is worthy 
of remark that many of the blessings of home 
are not dependent on the moral character of 
parents. The Maker of man, who "setteth the 
solitary in families," has implanted in human 
hearts an instinctive love for their offspring. 
Scarcely anything but rum can down this par- 
ental affection. In the worst portions of New 
York, where vice is the rule, many a mother sits 
rocking the cradle of her sick child all night on 
the sidewalk, that her babe may have the fresh 
and healing air which is effectually shut out of 
those tenement houses by crowds of human be- 
ings, and floors covered with filth. Few homes 
are as bad as no home. And there are thou- 
sands of homes not attractive to you and me, 



120 MARRIAGE AND HOME. 

which are the best place on earth to the weary 
bodies and aching hearts of others. ''Home, 
Sweet Home," is played "with variations." 
Yet around its harmonious strains, in any of its 
forms, how many precious memories gather. 
That fittest type of Heaven is possible only as 
the basis is furnished b} r marriage. Among the 
relics of my early home is nw father's family 
Bible. The family record is made in his hand- 
writing, and the date under his name on the fly 
leaf corresponds with the date of his marriage. 
Thus the gathering together of those things 
which make home pleasant in its associations 
and cultivating by its surroundings, is a natural 
sequence of marriage. 



121 



DISHONESTY: or, THE EIGHTH COM- 
MANDMENT. 

EXODUS, 20.15. 

The distinction between mine and thine arose 
at an early period of human history. The rights 
of property are a part of civilization. The rec- 
ognition of property rights is an incitement to 
industry; and without industry, our world 
would soon be a poor-house or a pandemonium. 
God's law recognizes the right of property. In 
many places in the Bible, in varied forms, with 
applications to special cases, the rights of man 
as to his property are stated, defined, and en- 
forced by threatened penalties. Eighth in or- 
der of the Ten Commandments, we find the pro- 
hibition, " Thou shalt not steal!" 

This commandment is of course opposed to 
what is commonly called theft. It is likewise 
opposed to communism, agrarianism, or any 
form of involuntary distribution of property, to 
" nationalization of the land" without consent 
of all land-owners. God's law guards the rights 
of property, and hence is favorable to those who 
have accumulated much or little of worldly 
store. ' ' That's the commandment for me, ' ' says 
the selfish man of wealth. Yes, but this sword 



122 DISHONESTY. 

has two edges. It forbids the rich to steal from 
the poor as well as the poor to steal from the 
rich. And the robbery of the poor is made a 
special subject of animad version, and employers 
are forbidden to keep back the wages of their 
workmen, or to oppress them in their wages. 
To steal a poor man's muscle and time is to vio- 
late this law. How graphically St. James sets 
forth, in the fifth chapter of his Epistle, the com- 
ing judgment of those rich men, of whom he says, 
41 Behold, the hire of the laborers who have 
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept 
back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them 
which have reaped are entered into the ears of 
the Lord of Sabaoth." This law is, in a word, 
opposed to the getting of any property, save b} r 
gift, without rendering an equivalent. 

Let us note a few of the more common forms 
of this sin. Gambling is one of them. Both 
the wanner and the loser are thieves in intent. 
Gambling in stocks or grain is no better than 
seven-up for the whiske}-. Lotteries are to be 
classed with gambling. Strange that a state 
which has laws against theft and fraud, should 
legalize a lottery. Lotteries at church fairs, 
whether in the form of a ring-cake, a grab-bag, 
or a fish-pond, are as bad as the worst. These 
k ' pious frauds ' ' are as unscriptural as they are 
contemptible. Bribery deserves a place here. The 
giver and the taker of a bribe are equally dis- 



DISHONESTY. 123 

honest. Speculating with trust funds has come 
to be one of the most common methods of dis- 
honesty. Into this maelstrom hundreds have 
been drawn, who would have rejected the 
thought of stealing from the poor, the widow 
and the fatherless. Society would be helped by 
an administration of justice which would make 
4 ' defrauder ' ' synonymous with ' ' robber, ' ' which 
would not encourage thievery on a large scale 
by treating a man with a " deficiency in his ac- 
counts," as anything but a common thief. Mis- 
representation in selling or buying, in order to 
get a "good bargain," is stealing. The man 
who pays for sugar does not call for part sand. 
To cheat in weight or measure, is to steal. To 
sell grain or fruit by an unfair sample, to put 
the best at the top, and so to get a good price 
for a poor article, to recommend our goods more 
than they will bear, are common methods of 
theft. To jew a man down, when he only asks 
a" fair margin on goods, to take advantage of a 
seller's necessities, are equally reprehensible with 
the foregoing. A refusal to pay honest debts is 
theft, unless such payment is absolutely impos- 
sible. Bankruptcy is often but a long and legal 
name for fraud or theft. Living beyond one's 
means, unless in case of extreme necessity, is a 
method of stealing much in vogue in our coun- 
try. Josh Billings has furnished the motto for 
this popular sin of this fast age: "A man should 



124 DISHONESTY. 

live within his means, if he has to borrow money 
to doit with." 

This commandment requires honesty in our 
dealings with government and with corpora- 
tions, as well as with individuals. It is opposed 
to "crooked" whiskey, to unstamped cigars, to 
smuggling, to buying or selling goods on which 
we know the government has been defrauded, 
to false returns to assessors, to back-pa3 r legisla- 
tion. The brand of thief is on the man who 
steals a railroad-ride. If " corporate bodies 
have no souls," they have pockets, and he is a 
pickpocket who cheats a corporation. What 
great need there is that officers of corporations 
should learn that mathematical axiom, "The 
whole is the sum of all its parts," so that they 
would no sooner defraud a thousand citizens 
than one. "Fat contracts," granted because 
the money comes from the public treasur^^ 
(which means from several hundred or thousand 
private citizens), and because a percentage 
comes to the grantors: the reckless giving away 
of government lands; all forms of squandering 
the money or property of the general govern- 
ment; these are in proof of the need of a con- 
science and a judgment educated to regard the 
sanctity of property rights and the Divine origin 
of the moral law. This commandment is not 
simply a statement that "honesty is the best 
policy"; it is God's absolute prohibition of dis- 



DISHONESTY. 125 

honesty. Principle, not policy, is to be our 
guide. 

When will the day come when the Golden Rule 
shall be the standard of moral measurement? 
When will prohibitions and penalties be unneces- 
sary? When shall we be able to understand the 
spirit of St. Paul's injunction, " Let no man seek 
his own, but every man another's wealth"? 
When shall selfishness pass away, and the world 
be blest with universal good will? When shall 
perfect love cast out fear, and perfect honesty 
banish distrust? Not till we obey the words 
and imit*ate the example of "The Just One." 

It is a common thing to find men who are hon- 
est with their fellow-men, but do not give God 
his due. They "rob God," and will not restore 
that which they know belongs to him. They 
ought to "render to God the things which are 
God's," on the same principle on which they 
"render to all their dues." Honest men, be con- 
sistent hj becoming Christians. 

That genial and witty author, Dr. 0. W. 
Holmes, touched on this matter of dishonesty, 
and showed how much needs to be done before 
the world reaches a perfect moral state, in the 
first number of his famous papers, entitled, 
"The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." The 
lines I copy are from the Atlantic Monthly for 
November, 1857, and to some may need this 
word of explanation: Wm. Miller, who taught 



126 DISHONESTY. 

that Christ would make his second advent in 
the year 1843, created much excitement, and 
Dr. Cumming, of England, was prophesying the 
speedy dissolution of the present order of things, 
at the time Dr. Holmes wrote. Dr. Holmes as- 
sumes, in common with the general interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, that righteousness is to tri- 
umph before the dissolution of the world. The 
title of his poem is, 

"LATTER DAY WARNINGS." 

" When legislators keep the law, 
When banks dispense with bolts and locks; 

When berries— whortle, rasp and straw- 
Grow bigger downwards through the box; 

When he that selleth house or land, 

Shows leak in roof or flaw in right; 
Wh>n haberdashers choose the stand 

Whose window hath the broadest light; 

When preachers tell us all they think, 

And party-leaders all they mean; 
When what we pay for, that we drink, 

From real grape or coffee-bean; 

When lawyers take what they would give, 
And doctors give what they would take; 

When city fathers eat to live, 
Save when they fast for conscience' sake; 

When one that hath a horse to sell, 

Shall bring his merit to the proof, 
Without a lie for every nail 

That holds the iron to the hoof; 

When in the usual place for rips, 
Our gloves are stitched with special care. 

And guarded well the whalebone tips, 
Where first umbrellas need repair; 

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 

The power of suction to resist, 
And claret-bottles harbor not 

Such dimples as would hold your fist; 

When publishers no longer steal, 

And pay for what they stole before; 
When first the locomotive's wheel 

Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore; 

Till then, let Cumming blaze away. 

And Miller's saints blow up the globe; 
But when you see that blessed day. 

Then order your ascension robe." 



127 



LYING: or, THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:16. 

The Ninth Commandment, "Thou shalt not 
bear false witness against thy neighbor," forbids 
perjury, slander, libel, flattery, tale-bearing, and 
all kinds of lying. To some of the common 
methods of lying let us direct our attention. 
Custom is often stranger than law. A habit of 
sinning sometimes wears out the patience of 
conscience, and that inward monitor gives us 
the rein and lets us go where we will and as we 
will, only saying this parting word: "You 
must take your own chances.' ' The common 
liar, as we call him, is a most despicable charac- 
ter; he lies concerning everything, lies without a 
motive, lies when the truth would serve him 
better. Of such general liars, this passing no- 
tice is sufficient. To particular lies, to partial 
lies, to lies covered by custom, to lies hidden by 
piles of greenbacks, and to several other varie- 
ties of lies, let us now give our thought. 

Parental lies may well be named first, as it is 
at home where lessons of deceit are most easih r 
learned. Parents make promises to their child- 
ren which they hope the children will forget, 



128 LYING. 

which they do not intend to keep, which they 
do not fulfill even when reminded of them, 
which their children soon learn to estimate at 
their proper value. Parents sometimes make 
threats against their children which they do 
not execute, and do not intend to execute. 
They seek to enforce their weak government by 
scaring their children with lies as to " the black 
man," and many similar appeals to childish 
fear. A lie told to one's own clild is as black as 
the blackest. Children often lie to escape pun- 
ishment; indeed are sometimes frightened into 
lying by inconsiderate threats, or a dispropor- 
tionate whipping; often promise, "I'll never do 
so again," and break their word the next day. 
Children bidden to do a certain work, sometimes 
report it as done, when it is hardly half-done. 
It becomes parents to watch the first develop- 
ment of untruthfulness in their children, and by 
example and precept strive to correct it. 

Society lies are common. "Not at home," 
when you are in the kitchen; " Glad to see you," 
emphasized with a kiss, when you hate the sight 
of your caller; "Do call again," when you hope 
that face may never be seen in your house again. 
Of course these and similar cases are considered 
as simple matters of courtesy, but we may be 
courteous without the aid of deceit. 

Business lies, lies for gain, need notice. These 
are frequently made no account of, as being a 



LYING. 129 

necessary part of a thorough business educa- 
tion, as being essential to success. Deacon Jabe 
Sniffin, who was a capital horse-trader, who 
thought he had experienced a change of heart, 
but did not want to experience a change of busi- 
ness, went to consult with Deacon Aminadab 
Tweedle, the whiskey-grocer; saidSniffin: "Now, 
look a here; you don't s'pose, Brother Tweedle, 
you don't s'pose them little stories, sort o' lies 
like, that you and I tell in the way of trade will 
be reckoned up agin us in the day of judgment? 
Sarcumstanced as we air, we can't help it, you 
know. I don't s'pose it will make no sort o' 
difference at all in the sight of the Lord, long's 
the heart's all right; now does it, Brother 
Tweedle?" 

Lying advertisements are a common resort of 
some business men. Medicines, machinery, al- 
most all kinds of goods, are represented as vast- 
ly better than the facts will warrant. Labels 
often lie, when they read " Pure Pepper," " Pure 
Ground Coffee," and the like. Newspaper lies 
need no description. I do not suppose the pro- 
portion of liars is any greater among writers 
for the press than among many other classes. 
But their lies are. more generally known, as by 
means of the public prints a man may lie by 
wholesale. Political lies are a staple article in 
all regular campaigns. To vilify the opposing 
party and its candidates, and to glorify one's 



130 LYING. 

own party and its representatives, make up the 
usual divisions of a political harangue. States- 
men can hardly be distinguished from politi- 
cians, when they mingle in the arena during the 
contest for office. Theological lies must not go 
unnoticed. The controversialist, whether in the 
pulpit or through the press, who misrepresents 
his opponent, even though his opponent be an 
infidel, is as guilty as a lying politician. Physi- 
cians sometimes yield to the temptation to de- 
ceive their patients and their patients' friends. 
I am not unaware of the reasons for keeping 
the truth from a patient who is in a critical con- 
dition, but it would seem that the truth may be 
withheld without telling a falsehood. Often noth- 
ing cures equal to a "placebo," when the mind 
needs medicine more than the body, but a deep 
moral sense will draw a line beyond which inno- 
cent deception can not go. In our present meth- 
od of conducting cases of litigation, it is con- 
sidered a lawyer's professional duty to keep 
back as much of unwelcome truth as legal tech- 
nicalities will permit, and to so conduct his case 
that his client shall win, not that justice maybe 
done. Of course it is supposed that the oppos- 
ing council will do his best to present the other 
side, and it may be argued that this is the best 
method of getting at the truth. But it may 
perhaps be safely said, without a sweeping con- 
demnation of the legal fraternity, that our mod- 



LYING. 131 

ern civilization demands, and our legal brethren 
are able to devise, a better method of conduct- 
ing trials and suits of all kinds. 

Equivocation is a way of lying used by people 
of tender conscience, who tell a half-truth, but 
can not tell a falsehood; as Abraham said, 
Sarah was his sister, which was true, but which 
was calculated to convey the impression that 
she was not his wife. Hypocrisy is an acted lie, 
and, whether in the church or out of it, deserves 
our execration. The willful violation of busi- 
ness engagements, spoken or written, is a breach 
of this commandment. The breaking of the sol- 
emn vows at the marriage-altar, is to be classed 
with the blackest kind of lying. 

There are, as we have seen, many ways of ly- 
ing, many temptations to lying, many excuses 
offered for lying. To be perfectly truthful , we need 
not only to be watchful and conscientious, but 
we need the help of Him who is " The Truth." 

This subject demands a few words on lying to 
God. Ananias and Sapphira were not the first 
nor the last of those guilty of this sin. How 
many of us who call ourselves Christians, have 
broken the vows by which, in private and in 
public, we promised to give to the Lord our 
time, our strength, our all. Often have we 
" kept back part of the price " of genuine spirit- 
ual life, grown worldly, and forgotten that we 
are not our own. We are not our own, bv our 



132 LYING. 

giving ourselves to God, as well as b\^ the fact 
that we are ''bought with a price." The Savior 
gave us pardon and peace only on the condition 
of absolute self-surrender. Only as we keep all 
on the altar can we be true to our covenant 
with God. Let us be so thoroughly sincere and 
truthful that the Searcher of hearts may say of 
each of us, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in 
whom is no guile." But there are many who, 
in times of danger, trouble, or sickness, have 
promised God that if he would deliver them, 
they would serve him. The deliverance came, 
but the vow has not been kept. Are } t ou one of 
those who have broken such vows? Say, with 
David, "I will pay that which I have vowed." 



133 



COYETOUSNESS: or, THE TENTH COM- 
MANDMENT. 

Exodus, 20:17. 

The last of the commandments, "Thou shalt 
not covet," specifies among forbidden objects, 
our "neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor 
his maid-servant," some articles of real and 
personal property, and then closes with, "nor 
anything that is thy neighbor's." As to its 
comprehensiveness, this "commandment is ex- 
ceeding broad." 

The Hebrew word here translated, "covet," 
is, in the repetition of the Decalogue in the fifth 
of Deuteronomy, translated "desire." We are 
not forbidden to desire the comforts and bless- 
ings of this life, but we are prohibited from 
wishing or desiring to enrich ourselves or to add 
to our wordly comforts, at the expense of our 
neighbor. This commandment, unlike the oth- 
ers, does not relate to conduct; it rather relates 
to character, which is the basis of conduct. 
Here, after external duties have been prescribed 
and open sins prohibited, we find a word aimed 
at the heart, a law which bears on the inner 
life, a prohibition of wrong thoughts. 



134 COYETOUSNESS. 

It is evident that obedience to this command- 
ment is very difficult: but the difficulty is only 
in proportion to the importance. More than 
all the other laws of the "second table," the 
text shows that the underlying thought of this 
portion of the Decalogue is, "Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as tlryself." If we can keep this 
commandment, we shall have no trouble in 
keeping the laws as to our external conduct to- 
wards our fellow-men. Wrong desire is the seed 
of wrong-doing. As has been said, this com- 
mandment aims to "kill sin in the egg. 11 Cer- 
tainty that is better than to wait for evil desire 
to hatch into open wickedness and grow to ma- 
turity. 

It may perhaps be truly said that the real de- 
sign of the tenth commandment is to condemn 
and prohibit selfishness. Fallen man has much 
in common with the beasts of prey; his appe- 
tite must be satisfied, his passions gratified, 
though others suffer to minister to his comfort. 
Savages are supremely selfish; the little children 
of our civilized, Christian homes show the same 
trait, and need many lessons to teach them the 
"golden rule," the happiness of giving, the joy 
of serving others. As usually developed, this 
selfishness manifests itself in some kind of world- 
liness; frequently it takes the form of wealth- 
seeking and money-loving. Whether wealth be 
sought for its own sake, as in the case of the 






COVETOUSNESS. 135 

miser, or for the pleasure, position and "pride 
of life " which money usually procures, the aim 
is selfish, the motive is debasing, and the results 
on character are deplorable. I speak of the pur- 
suit of wealth as the business of life, not of the 
legitimate acquisition of wealth by those who 
have lofty motives, and who never forget the 
claims of God and of their fellow-men. It is not 
the possession of wealth that shows the charac- 
ter of a man: the question is, does the wealth 
possess the man? Is he a slave to it and a wor- 
shiper of it? Nay, this selfish worldliness is 
shown by the love of money, the desire for 
money, the devotion of one's life to money- 
getting, though the w r ealth-seeker always re- 
main poor. Worldliness, or covetousness, is not 
a sin of the rich alone; it is especially a sin of 
those w^ho "will to be rich," whether the pur- 
pose is accomplished or not. There are some 
unwordly rich men, and there are many wordly, 
w r ealth-seeking poor men. 

The indulgence of the desires forbidden in the 
text, is opposed to spirituality and piety. It is 
a violation of God's law, hence it is impious as 
w r ell as immoral. It is the seeking of a seeming 
good that God has stamped as evil. It is set- 
ting up our judgment against that of our all- 
wise Father. It is the displacement of spiritual- 
ity by earthliness, of the eternal by the tem- 
poral, of God by the world. " If any man love 



136 COVETOUSNESS. 

the world, the love of the Father is not in him: 
for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, 
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is 
not of the Father, but is of the world. (1 John, 
2:15,16.) 

The indulgence of these forbidden desires, and 
the resulting worldliness, are of an insidious, 
self-justifying nature. Saint Francis de Sales, 
to whom multitudes resorted as a confessor, 
said, "None confess the sin of covetousness." 
The sin is so common as to be reputable. "The 
multitude never blush." A parsimonious man 
calls himself frugal; an avaricious man thinks 
himself simply prudent; a devotee of wealth 
says he is only seeking to provide for his chil- 
dren. Mark the manner in which Eve reasoned 
herself into partaking of the forbidden fruit: 
"And when the woman saw that the tree was 
good for food, and that it was pleasant to the 
eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, 
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and 
gave also unto her husband with her; and he 
did eat." Thus ever does the lying Serpent try 
to make "the worse appear the better reason," 
and to show the reasonableness of disobeying 
the Divine law. Let us listen to the strong lan- 
guage of our Lord: "Ye can not serve God and 
Mammon." It was wisely said by one of the 
church Fathers, that the Savior does not saywe 
can not have God and Mammon, but we can not 



COVETOUSNESS. 137 

" serve " God and Mammon: "For he that is the 
servant of God, must be master of his wealth." 
But the man who serves his wealth and wor- 
ships the world, can not be a servant of God. 
If otir "treasure "is on earth, our heart will be 
there; if our " treasure " is in heaven, our hearts 
will be in heaven. So taught our Master. 

Covetousness is a sin of the heart, but it leads 
to many open violations of the laws of God. 
Ahab desired Naboth's vineyard, and offered to 
buy it or trade for it; but Nabothwas unwilling 
to sell the vineyard, for it was, he said, "the in- 
heritance of my fathers." Yet Ahab so coveted 
that vineyard that he was "heavy and dis- 
pleased" at Naboth's refusal, "and he laid him 
down upon his bed, and turned away his face, 
and w T ould eat no bread." This sinful desire, 
made known to Jezebel, led to perjury and mur- 
der in order to the theft of the coveted property. 
Three other commandments were broken be- 
cause the tenth was not observed. The evil re- 
sults of this grasping after the world are thus 
stated in 1 Timothy, 6:9: "But they that will 
be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and 
into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
drown men in destruction and perdition." 

Covetousness is a foe to human happiness. 
True happiness depends on what w^e are, not on 
what we have. The real question is not what a 
man's property is w r orth, but what the man is 



138 COVETOUSNESS. 

worth. Acquiring or possessing worldly goods 
for their own sake, or for any selfish end, is sure 
to be disappointing as to the resulting happi- 
ness or satisfaction. Solomon says, "He that 
loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." 
Plutarch, referring to the same subject, says, 
" Your medicine makes your disease worse." A 
Latin proverb teaches, " Money provokes avar- 
ice, instead of satisfying it." One might as 
well drink salt water to quench his thirst as ex- 
pect to satisfy his desires by worldly wealth. 
How much is enough? A millionaire replied, " A 
little more." Thus 

" Man never is, but always to be blest." 

Well would it be if we would heed those words 
written by Paul to Timothy, "The love of 
money is the root of all evil: which, while some 
coveted after, they have erred from the faith, 
and pierced themselves through with many 
sorrows." 

This commandment teaches contentment with 
our lot; not contentment with a lot which dili- 
gence and honest toil can improve, but absence 
of envy at the worldly prosperity of our neigh- 
bors, and absence of all "covetous desires" for 
wealth. But true contentment is, as one has 
said, "a bird of paradise"; it comes from an- 
other world. He who has a title to heaven is 
rich, and may well be content with what Provi- 
dence gives him of this world. With promises 



COVETOUSNESS. 139 

of God's presence and help, one can afford to 
forego the " uncertain riches" of earth. "Let 
your conversation be without covetousness; 
and be content with such things as ye have: for 
he hath said, "I will never leave thee, nor for- 
sake thee.' " Of Christians it is said, "All things 
are yours." It is even true that God is ours, 
and possessing him, and all things in him, we 
are rich for time and for eternity. Let none of 
as imitate the man who "layeth up treasure for 
himself, and is not rich toward God." 



140 



MENTAL CULTURE A CHRISTIAN DUTY. 

" In understanding, be men.'-] Cortnthians, 14:20. 

Man is not so much a unit as a union. He is 
not an element, but a compound. For practical 
purposes, we can hardly do better than consider 
human nature as composed of three elements, 
spiritual, intellectual and corporeal. Each of 
these elements is a germ to be developed by cul- 
ture. Man begins his existence with capacities 
rather than powers. Almost every child is born 
with great possibilities; but the conversion of 
the possible into the actual, is the work of cul- 
ture. Physically, many a man has had as good 
a capacity as any of the noted athletes of an- 
cient or modern times, but the neglect of culture 
has made him a weakling. Intellectual capacity 
as vast as Aristotle's, Bacon's, or Newton's, 
has, no doubt, often fallen to the lot of men 
whom the world has not recognized. This prac- 
tical world, as it gets no benefit from uncul- 
tured capacity, gives no recognition to a man 
for what he might have been. Spiritual natures 
as deep, and as susceptible of converse with 
heaven, as David's, Fenelon's, or Fletcher's, 
have been cultured so little that a long life has 
only brought them to a half-opened bud. 



MENTAL CULTURE. 141 

But not only does each part of man's three- 
fold nature need culture, but the happiness, the 
usefulness, the perfection of the m an, require the 
harmonious development of all the parts. One- 
sided culture has produced many monstrosities. 
The crowds who gather to witness the exhibi- 
tions of human strength and endurance, are at- 
tracted by a monstrosity. Had the time, 
thought and patience, which have been given to 
physical training, been bestowed on the whole 
being, instead of athletes, there would have been 
men. Intellectual culture, divorced from physi- 
cal and spiritual development, is equally as de- 
fective, though not so gross. A cultivated mind 
in a weak body, with a dormant spiritual na- 
ture, is a sad spectacle, a bound Prometheus. 
But the world has specimens of unnatural spir- 
itual development. Though the spiritual ele- 
ment is the highest in man's nature, it may have 
an excessive, because abnormal, growth. Such 
is the case when the body is neglected or abused 
for the soul's sake; as though that which God 
has so "fearfully and wonderfully made," could 
be despised without irreverence, or injured with- 
out loss. Again, the culture of the spiritual, to 
the exclusion of the intellectual, nature, only 
produces a prodigy. That is a blind devotion, 
of which ignorance is the mother. A spiritual- 
ity which pays homage to a Power it does not 
strive to apprehend, to a Wisdom whose work- 



142 MENTAL CULTURE. 

ings it does not study, to a Love whose methods 
do not stimulate and enlarge the intellect, can 
not command the respect of men or the full ap- 
probation of God. 

There exists a somewhat widespread belief 
that mental culture is a foe to Christian faith, if 
not to Christian practice. This belief is com- 
mon among men of culture who are destitute of 
Christian faith. Men who consecrate their lives 
to the development of their minds, to the gath- 
ering of stores of literary or scientific informa- 
tion, often become devotees of mental culture, 
which fills the whole field of their vision , and 
receives as real a worship as any Christian 
offers to God. Such men are too much absorbed 
in their acts of devotion, to discover or appreci- 
ate the grandeur of Christianity. With a par- 
tial knowledge of the Christian scheme, with 
methods of thought which are unfavorable to 
Christian^, with an exalted idea of intellect, 
these men despise the simplicity of the Gospel, 
or doubt its mysteries. Or, considering mental 
culture and religion as alternatives, they choose 
the former, when they might be blessed with 
both. Eve essayed to gain wisdom by disobedi- 
ence to the "Higher Law." The Serpent would 
persuade her that God had prohibited knowl- 
edge, when he had only forbidden sin. The God 
of the Bible does not want us to remain in ignor- 
ance, but to abide in holiness. There is no degf- 



MENTAL CULTURE. 143 

radation of the intellect in submission to God. 
There is another class who consider mental cul- 
ture as opposed to Christian faith. There are 
Christians of a thoroughly devotional spirit, 
who are so given up to strictly religious duties, 
as to think that time taken for mental culture, 
is stolen from God. There are others who judge 
from the antagonism sometimes seen between 
men of culture and men of faith, that there is 
something antagonistic between culture and 
faith; or, they have known a humble, devout 
young man to lose his piety in gaining his edu- 
cation. Firmly persuaded that religion is of 
the first importance, fearing that mental culture 
will uproot his cherished faith and ruin his soul, 
a man may shun learning as he would flee from 
a pestilence. This fear of danger to his piety 
may arise from a doubt, of which he is hardly 
conscious, whether his experience and his Bible 
will bear the light of investigation. But if they 
will not, would it not be well to know the 
worst? However, a slight acquaintance with 
Christian biography is sufficient to prove that 
cultured intellects are often conjoined with be- 
lieving hearts. Again, it may be urged that 
pride and self-sufficiency are the natural, usual 
effects of intellectual development; that, in all 
cases , ' ' knowledge puffeth up . " But true knowl- 
edge, knowledge gained under Christian influ- 
ences and for Christian purposes, is not that of 



144 MENTAL CULTURE. 

which Paul speaks: he would have us " wise 
unto that which is good, and simple concerning 
evil"; he advises us to pray and sing "with the 
understanding," as well as " with the spirit," 
and gives us his counsel in those Christ-like 
words, "In malice, he ye children; but in under- 
standing, be men." 

Our theme boldh^ challenges the view that cul- 
ture and faith are antagonistic. Indeed, it in- 
vites us to go farther into this subject than to 
disprove that antagonism. We must do more 
than to show that mental culture is harmless 
and permissible; we must exhibit it as a" Christ- 
ian Duty." But while we take this bold posi- 
tion, we are not called to glorify intellectual 
development. Let the votaries of the world 
speak the praises of the world; let the worship- 
ers of culture bow at culture's shrine; but let 
Christians study how, by the discipline of their 
minds, they may intelligently w r orship and effi- 
ciently serve their Divine Redeemer. No selfish 
motives must be stirred by our consideration of 
this subject. We may not look on mental cul- 
ture as a means for our gratification. It will 
not do to be actuated in the pursuit of it simply 
by a desire to "understand all mysteries and all 
knowledge. " It is no motive worthy of a Christ- 
ian, to get an education for the purpose of 
worldly gain. We dare not appeal to ambition, 
and say with the Babel-builders, "Let us make 



MENTAL CULTURE. 145 

us a name." We may not seek the glory of 
earthly distinction, the honor accorded by men, 
the immortality of Fame; but we must seek 
that " glory and honor and immortality " which 
God crowns with " eternal life." Keeping these 
limitations in mind, let us enter more fully into 
our subject. 

The fact that man has intellectual capacity, 
makes it his duty to develop it. We do not 
fully reverence God as Creator, unless we make 
the most of the being he has given us. If it is a 
duty to care for our bodies, to make and keep 
them strong and pure, to treat them as " tem- 
ples of the Holy Ghost," that so we may 
" glorify God in" our "body"; then it is cer- 
tainly our duty to develop our mental faculties. 
If it is wrong to leave the religious nature 
blindly groping and vainly calling for God, 
when the means of finding him are so evident; 
if it is a sin to stifle the voice of conscience, and, 
by prayerlessness and godlessness, to dwarf the 
spiritual capacity; surely it is a sin not to im- 
prove the faculties of our minds. If lack of 
mental cultivation did not affect the health of 
our bodies and impede the growth of our souls, 
it would still be wrong to slight the gift of our 
Creator by neglecting one of the three constitu- 
ent parts of our being. If this talent be buried, 
what shall we say when the Universal Proprie- 
tor asks for his own with interest? 



146 MENTAL CULTURE. 

But the Creator's work without us, as well as 
his work within us, tells of the Christian's duty 
to improve his mind. The world on which we 
live is everywhere marked by the "footprints of 
the Creator." Well may we join the devout 
Psalmist in saying, " Lord, how manifold are 
thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: 
the earth is full of thy riches; so is this great 
and wide sea." Innumerable fields of thought 
and investigation open before the mind, in this 
wonderful world. Matter in all its protean 
changes, life with all its varieties, laws the most 
marvelous, designs the most beneficent, speak 
the Creator's praise. Universal nature seems to 
be living in obedience to Paul's counsel: " Speak- 
ing to yourselves in psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs, singing and making melod\^ in 
your heart to the Lord." But he who examines 
not these e very-day marvels, slights that on 
which infinite skill, power and love have been 
bestowed. How are the great problems in Na- 
ture's school to be solved, except by "always 
thinking upon them"? How shall we hear the 
stars 

"Forever singing as they shine, 

' The hand that made us is Divine,' " 

if we do not, with cultured ear, listen to their 
song? Truly if 

" The undevout astronomer is mad,"' 

the devout man who neglects the wonderful 
works of God, is hardly sane. And this unde- 






MENTAL CULTURE. 147 

voutness of some students of nature, makes 
more evident the duty of studying the Creator's 
works, that we may prove the madness of the 
un devout. But to discover the indications, the 
unmistakable proofs, of God's presence and 
power in creation, to follow the paths of former 
explorers, to make a path across trackless fields, 
both require and give mental culture. 

But the Christian is more than a Theist; and 
the claims of God as Creator, are but a part of 
his claims. We owe it to him as our Redeemer, 
to cultivate our minds. Redemption is the 
grandest of facts. The Divine origin of the 
plan of Redemption comes out more and more 
boldly, as we give ourselves to the study of it. 
"The angels desire to look into" these depths 
of infinite love and wisdom. It is true that a 
cultured intellect, without a keen moral sense 
and a fine spiritual discernment, can do little 
towards honoring and glorifying God "in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 
But we are not dealing with cold intellectual- 
ism, but with mental culture for Christians. 
We hesitate not in saying that the question in- 
volved in the subject of God's method of saving- 
sinners, can not be even approximately grasped 
by an uncultivated mind. The Atonement is 
not a doctrine easily understood, as may be 
learned from the history of that doctrine. Of 
course cultured men do not quite agree in their 



148 MENTAL CULTURE. 

views of this central doctrine. Yet it is safe to 
say that a devout Christian is made more de- 
vout if, by the strong effort of his keen intellect, 
he strives to sound the fathomless sea of God's 
love, and to climb the unscalable hights of the 
wisdom that rescued a fallen w-orld. Then, we 
owe it to our Redeemer to develop our minds, 
that we may render him the best service of 
which we are capable. Nothing is too good. 
Christ has redeemed the entire man. It is fit- 
ting that we should highly esteem and rightly 
use what he has redeemed at infinite cost. Our 
best thoughts, as well as our best deeds and 
prayers, should be given to his work. All the 
power of human thought, every grace of rhet- 
oric, every charm of oratory, all these can never 
adequately tell the glory of his Name and the 
grandeur of his Gospel. 

"Join all the glorious names 
Of wisdom, love and power, 
That angels ever knew, 
Or mortals ever bore: 
All are too mean to speak his worth, 
Too mean to set my Savior forth. ' ; 

Then, there are many kinds of work for the 
Savior, for which mental culture is essential. 
Among these may be noted this, that, as a rule, 
men of culture can be reached and led to Christ, 
only by Christians of cultivated minds. There 
must be sympathy, something of affinity, to 
■enable one soul to bring another soul to Jesus. 
Sometimes this bond of sympathy is formed by 



MENTAL CULTURE. 149 

a family relationship, as when Andrew brought 
Peter to the Master; sometimes it is a common 
lot of sorrow; again it is a commonness of indus- 
trial or social interests. This law manifests it- 
self in the sympathy of cultured minds: there 
are so many topics with which all such are 
familiar, so many names which awaken com- 
mon feelings, so many matters in which their 
tastes agree, that soul is bound to soul. This 
bond of sympathy often becomes the medium by 
which the Divine Spirit sends his message of love 
to the heart of the unsaved man of culture. It 
would oftenerbe the medium of Divine influence, 
were our culture thoroughly consecrated to 
Christ. It will not answer for us to say that it 
is much more difficult to win a cultured than an 
uncultured man; for, however difficult the work, 
all belong to our Lord, and we must claim them 
for him. Besides, the cultured convert is worth 
more to the cause of Christ than the other. We 
name Saul of Tarsus as a sufficient illustration. 
The influence of the conversion of a man of cul- 
tivated intellect is usually great, as is frequently 
shown in the history of foreign missions. All 
talents are made serviceable to the kingdom of 
God; and conversion and honest consecration 
secure the fashioning of culture into the silver 
and gold vessels of the sanctuary. We have 
just alluded to the missionary work of the 
church. For this, mental culture is a necessity. 



150 MENTAL CULTURE. 

The mastery of a foreign language, the present- 
ation of the Divine Message in a suitable man- 
ner, the parrying of objections made by cultured 
heathen, not to mention the translation of the 
Scriptures and similar difficult tasks, make it 
necessar^r that we send only men and women of 
cultivated minds to evangelize the heathen. 
The great preparation for the conversion of the 
world is thus dependent on mental culture, 
which is the ' ' voice in the wilderness ' ' fulfilling 
the command, " Prepare ye the wa} r of the Lord, 
make straight in the desert a highway- for our 
God." Yet again, biblical criticism, Scripture 
interpretation, S3^stematic divinity, and kindred 
branches of study, demand the highest mental 
culture, and greatly promote the Redeemer's 
kingdom. The Bible, which is "the religion of 
Protestants," is intelligible to the masses, be- 
cause learned men have translated and ex- 
pounded it. For clear statement of Christian 
doctrine, we are indebted to men of culture. 
Those defenses of the Faith, which make us so 
confident that the citadel of Christian truth is 
impregnable, are the product of consecrated 
brains. The Christian literature which is a 
glory to the church and a light to the world, 
sprang forth in its beauty and strength from 
the heads of intellectual Christians. A moment- 
ary glance at the history of the church will re- 
veal the important place occupied by mental 



MENTAL CULTURE. 151 

culture. Abstract the intellectual culture of the 
apostle Paul from the early history of Christi- 
anity, and from the New Testament record, and 
how great the void. What would the Reforma- 
tion have been without mental culture? Would 
there have been a Reformation without it? De- 
duct the learning of Luther, Melancthon, Cal- 
vin, and their precursors and coadjutors, from 
the forces which God employed to free his Word 
and purify his Church, and how changed would 
be the causes and the results. What has given 
Wesley's influence such might and permanence, 
but that mental vigor by which he systematized 
his views and organized his followers? The pos- 
sibility of doing a great work for Christ, the 
opportunity for setting in motion a train of in- 
fluences which will reach the remotest future 
with their blessings, the gaining of a leverage 
by which the world may be lifted heavenward, 
depend frequently on mental culture. The high- 
est kind of Christian service will ever be ren- 
dered, the strong foundations for the upbuilding 
of Christianity will usually be laid, by men of 
cultured minds. Every Christian is bound to do 
the best work for which he can be fitted. ' ' There 
is plenty of room in the upper story"; and a 
holy ambition to be useful may be gratified by 
the cultivation of our mental powers. Thus 
may we enlarge the sphere of our activity, and 
multiply the power of our influence. 



152 MENTAL CULTURE. 

We are called to mental culture by Divine 
Providence. Providence has been defined as 
''God in motion." We ought to believe as 
heartily in Providence as in Creation and Re- 
demption. This world's interests are not left to 
chance. Its intellectual and spiritual develop- 
ment can no more be secured without God, than 
could that physical development whose method 
reveals the Divine Artificer. The devout student 
of the world's histon^ will find unquestionable 
proofs of a Superintending Mind. Ruling and 
overruling, God orders the affairs of this world. 
Is it without significance that the present intel- 
lectual status of the world, and its opportuni- 
ties for culture, have been brought about by 
Christianity? Was not the Reformation of the 
sixteenth century a cause, as well as an effect, of 
the revival of learning? The Divine method, it 
would seem, has been to stimulate mental cul- 
ture by spiritual development. With hardly an 
exception, our colleges have been founded by 
Christian men. This not only shows that these 
men believed in mental culture, but so wide- 
spread a conviction, so general a movement, can 
only be considered an indication of Providence. 
We have come into this world when everything 
indicates a demand for mental culture. It is a 
sad anachronism for an ignorant Christian to 
live in an enlightened age. The minute-hand of 
God's chronometer points to mental culture. 






MENTAL CULTURE. 153 

The need of the hour is sanctified brains. He 
who would " serve his generation" must "catch 
the tune of the times," and keep step to the 
" Grand March" of Providence. The good 
name of our religion demands culture in an age 
of culture. John Foster wrote a long essay on 
"The Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical 
Religion." No small part of that aversion, in 
our day, as in his, is the result of those repre- 
sentations and professions which come from 
devout, but uncultured, Christians. How many 
caricatures of Christianity have been drawn by 
men who meant to bring out the loveliness and 
power of that religion which was to them a 
constant inspiration. This is not said as an 
apology for skepticism, but as a plea for culture. 
The duty of Christians is to remove every 
stumbling-block from every soul, so far as in 
them lies. It would be easy to point out the in- 
consistencies of cultured skeptics, to show how 
inexcusable they are, to tell them to go to the 
New Testament to learn what Christianity is; 
but our aim is to discover otir duty, not to 
prove their responsibility. As long as spiritual 
men despise or neglect mental culture, so long 
will men of culture have an aversion to spiritu- 
ality. It is the duty of each of these classes to 
improve what they have, and get what they 
lack. And the Christian has, as we have found, 
many reasons for improving his mind, besides 



154 MENTAL CULTURE. 

the help he may give to cultured skeptics. Yet 
such need special help, as the rank growth of 
the intellect often shades the spiritual nature, 
and robs it of its nourishment. For it is too 
true that culture does not always predispose 
men to piet}-; it is sometimes the rival of Christ 
Paul found the Athenians engrossed with cult- 
iure. They were so accustomedto doubts and 
• ■questionings, that as soon as they heard of 
Christ's resurrection, "some mocked," and oth- 
ers gracefully brought his speech to a close by 
the remark, "We will hear thee again of this 
matter." Yet some "clave unto him and be- 
lieved," among whom was Dionysius the Areo- 
pagite. There was some fruit, though not 
:muchJfruit. Cultured Dion} r sius was won by 
^cultured Paul. Soon after, "Paul departed 
from Athens, and came to Corinth," where he 
met with greater success. Admit, then, that 
.culture does not lead to faith. What results? 
(Shall we eschew culture? Shall the vast fields 
(Of literature and science be abandoned by the 
Christian Church? Or, shall we claim every- 
thing for Christ, these broad and fertile do- 
mains included? Most assuredly, we must 
claim culture for Christ, and we shall be able to 
remove the impediment in its religious speech, 
so that it will " speak plain " in its testimony to 
his power and grace. Let those whose hearts 
are alreadv his, consecrate to him their brains , 



MENTAL CULTURE. 155 

with all their increase. Into these domains, 
where so much can be made to yield tribute to 
our King, we should go, " conquering and to 
conquer." Science has only begun to discover 
the wonderful works of God. Let us search for 
new laws, more worlds, clearer proofs of his 
"Eternal Power and Godhead." Let us appre- 
ciate the work to which Newton and Kepler as 
religiously gave themselves as we give ourselves 
to prayer. And let us, like these great men, lay 
all the fruits of our search and our meditation, 
on the Christian altar. Literature, with all its 
charms, as well as science, with all its revela- 
tions, must be made the unquestionable ally of 
Christianity. Providence has thrown us into 
the midst of all forms of culture. Faithfulness 
to duty requires that we improve our providen- 
tial opportunities to gain mental culture, and to 
teach mute science and many-tongued literature 
to speak "the language of Canaan." This can 
only be done by a steady advance all along the 
line. Let the conviction that mental culture is 
a Christian duty settle down upon the Church, 
and this vast territory, occupied by the advance 
guards of both secularism and " other-worldli- 
ness," this great border-land between Christi- 
anity and infidelity, will, within a generation, 
acknowledge its rightful Sovereign. Special em- 
phasis belongs to this branch of our subject, 
from the fact that infidelit}' is boasting of its 



156 MENTAL CULTURE. 

culture, endeavoring to array all intellectual 
forces against the Gospel, and claiming that the 
growth of culture is the dec a}- of faith. There 
is sufficient truth in these claims, and enough 
earnestness in these endeavors, to convince us 
that a real conflict is before us. Men of great 
literary and scientific attainments, men among 
the nobility of the intellectual realm, men in 
high social and civil positions, men of irreproach- 
able moral character, are numbered among the 
apostles of infidelity. Atheists scan God's heav- 
ens through the world's largest telescopes; ma- 
terialists tell us the^- hunt in vain, with micro- 
scope and scalpel, to find a soul; philosophers re- 
port that in all their reasonings, the} T discover 
no First Cause; judges declare that law has no 
Divine sanction; statesmen hear the "voice of 
the people," but no "voice of God;" preachers 
of the "Religion of Humanity" revile the Gos- 
pel of Christ; historians write to prove that the 
intellectual development of the world will de- 
stroy the religion of the Bible, and that in the 
irrepressible " Conflict between Religion and Sci- 
ence," the latter is always victorious. The Ger- 
man Rationalists, who devoted themselves to 
the destructive criticism, which, were it accepted, 
would emasculate the Bible and paralyze faith, 
were intellectual giants. Strauss was a man of 
great learning, and all his ability r was used in an 
effort to subvert the supernatural in Christian- 






MENTAL CULTURE. 157 

ity. Renan, author of the rose-colored but 
thoroughly infidel "Life of Jesus, "has received 
an acknowledgment of his erudition, by being 
elected to membership in the French Academy. 
Matthew Arnold, one of the elite of English lit- 
erary circles, while disclaiming the title of "infi- 
del," considers orthodox theology " an immense 
misunderstanding of the Bible, due to the junc- 
tion of a talent for abstruse reasoning with 
much literary inexperience." It is true that 
there is no agreement among the infidel schools 
of culture, as to the method by which Christi- 
anity is to be " explained away." We know 
that Strauss's " My thical Theory "was intended 
to displace the "Rationalistic " method of inter- 
pretation; that in Renan "Legend" takes the 
place of "Myth;" that Arnold, who has much 
of the spirit and method of Renan, finds a far 
different character in Jesus from that presented 
by the learned Frenchman, and holds that criti- 
cism produces almost opposite results to those 
reached by Renan, in its application to the Gos- 
pel by St. John. Yet these, and all other oppo- 
nents of vital Christianity, agree that Ortho- 
doxy is doomed. And they come into the very 
citadel of the Christian Religion to give us bat- 
tle. They attempt to train the guns by which 
Christianity has been defended, upon its defend- 
ers. They take their stand on the Bible, and 
claim that the\ r grasp, and we miss, its mean- 



158 MENTAL CULTURE. 

ing. They are versed in the original languages 
of the Word , and are as familiar with Scripture 
as a professional exegete. We are glad to know 
that the great majority of those deserving the 
name of biblical critics, are Evangelical Christ- 
ians; that multitudes of men may be found in 
the Church of God, who are the peers, if not the 
superiors, of any of the cultured unbelievers. 
We have been pointing out a danger, calling at- 
tention to the strength and the tactics of the 
foe, not sounding a retreat, or prophesying dis- 
aster. There is no cause for alarm , if the Church 
will do her duty. The Ark of God needs not to 
be stayed by human hands, but we want it with 
us, not with the Philistines. These Goliaths 
who defy Israel, must be slain with their own 
weapons. Unbelief must be proved to be unsci- 
entific. Lord Bacon's remark that "depth in 
philosophy bringeth back men's minds to relig- 
ion," must be shown to rest on a sure founda- 
tion. There must be an intellectually-drilled 
Christian army, not an "awkward squad" led 
by a thorough tactician. There must be ' ' think- 
ing bayonets" as well as great generals. The 
reign of authority is passing away. It becomes 
every Christian to be able ' ' to give an ans wer 
to every man that asketh" him, "a reason of 
the hope that is in" him, and to show that he 
renders to God a "reasonable service." Infidel- 
ity is taking on something of system. The men 



MENTAL CULTURE. 159 

who eliminate everything supernatural and sav- 
ing from the. Gospel, can make your religious ex- 
perience appear like a dissolving view. Experi- 
mental, as well as doctrinal, Christianity, must 
search for its foundations, and show the unbe- 
lieving world how a supernatural religion is 
demonstrated by a supernatural experience. Is 
there any method by which the Christian Church 
can gain so certain and easy a victory, as by a 
general movement for mental culture? Thus 
may she remove reproach, and shine forth "fair 
as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an 
army with banners." Let the Church show 
that she is more zealous for mental culture than 
is infidelity, that she uses culture more fairly, 
that culture, rightly used, promotes faith, let 
the world see that 

"A Christian is the highest style of man,"— 

in a word, let mental culture be sought and pro- 
moted as a Christian duty, and used in a Christ- 
ian spirit, and the words of Isaiah will find a 
glorious fulfillment: ' ' The sons also of them that 
afflicted thee, shall come bending unto thee; and 
all they that despised thee shall bow themselves 
down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall 
call thee The City of the Lord, the Zion of the 
Holy One of Israel." 

Some one may say, "There are plenty of 
learned men in the Church; I have no call to 
mental culture." It may be you are not called 



160 MENTAL CULTURE. 

to devote your life to intellectual pursuits. Yet 
you are called to improve your mind so far as 
the opportunity is afforded. From this, there 
is no exception. To cover this general ground, 
let us briefly consider an argument founded on 
Christian experience. The quickening of the 
mental faculties at conversion, proves that men- 
tal culture is a Christian duty. Every Christian 
who is at all observant, and whose memory will 
reproduce his experience at the beginning of the 
new life, can testify to the mental quickening 
which accompanied the renewal of his heart. 
How could it be otherwise? His intellect had 
been involved in his moral history: his memory 
had retained the record of his sins, though he 
had tried to forget them; his reason had refused 
to submit to God; his imagination had often 
lured him into sin. The conviction which pre- 
ceded his conversion, forced him to mental ac- 
•tivitjr: it gave him new subjects of thought, and 
new reasons for thought; it led him to review 
his way, consider his condition, study his Bible, 
pray to his God. And when the great change 
came, it was felt through his whole being. He 
was conscious that his intellect had been stimu- 
lated; that his mind had been illuminated even 
before the new creation was complete. " God 
said 'Let there be light,' and there was light," 
before the "new man" had life breathed into 
him by the "Quickening Spirit." And in the 



MENTAL CULTURE. 161 

new relations, new duties and new hopes, which 
come to every renewed .man, how much there 
is to employ and enlarge his mind. Thus, every 
converted man is started or helped on the road 
to mental culture; and if he fails to follow this 
leading, he is unfaithful to the renewing Spirit. 
Let us look at our subject from one more 
standpoint. There is no question that it is our 
duty to cultivate piety; but the character of our 
piety depends largely on the degree of our intel- 
lectual development. The character of one's 
piety is largely determined by his views of God. 
It is true no man can comprehend the Infinite, 
yet it is equally as true that there are almost in- 
finite variations in men's views of God. These 
views are greatly modified by the degree of 
men's culture, and by the efforts of their minds 
to gain clear and worthy views of the Almighty. 
A man of feeble mind, who believes in the " one 
true and living God," may have a lower concep- 
tion of Jehovah than cultured heathen had of 
Jove, "Father of gods and men." How differ- 
ent our ideas of God from those we entertained 
in our childhood. What a difference between 
the apprehension of Divine Power by a man 
who considers the earth as the center of the uni- 
versal system, and the thoughts of that Power 
which fill the mind of a devout astronomer who 
knows this world is only a speck in an illimita- 
ble creation. How much men's appreciation of 



162 MENTAL CULTURE. 

the Divine Wisdom varies, according to their 
ability to grasp the plan and understand the 
laws of the physical, intellectual and moral 
world. In a certain sense, it may be said the 
ignorant and the learned Christian do not wor- 
ship the same God. Reverence is the very soul 
of worship: " The fear of the Lord is the begin- 
ning of wisdom." But the depth of man's rev- 
erence corresponds to the hight of his knowledge. 
Praise is an act of worship; and he who knows 
the most concerning God, will render him the 
most intelligent and hearty ascriptions of praise. 
If it be said that all this is readily admitted, but 
we are to get our views of God from the Bible, 
we reply that the Bible often invites us to a 
study of God's works. Having said this, we 
may further develop our argument, by no ting- 
that piety largely rests on a right understand- 
ing of the Scriptures, and mental culture is es- 
sential to a just interpretation of the Word. 
This point is w ell-nigh self-evident: we offer, 
therefore, illustrations rather than arguments, 
to call attention to the defectiveness of the piety 
of those who have not something approaching 
just views of the interpretation of Scripture. 
Into what superstitions have such been led by 
designing men . In what great crimes have they 
had the approval of an unenlightened conscience. 
What misconceptions of duty have they exhib- 
ited . How strangely have they distorted Christ- 



MENTAL CULTURE. 163 

ian doctrine. What gross ideas of heaven have 
they entertained. Look at the Churches in 
which the Bible is not the book of the people, 
but the book of the priests; in which private 
judgment is forbidden, and the "doctrines and 
commandments of men " are substituted for the 
Word of God. Think of the peculiar " experi- 
ences " and the inconsistent lives of many pro- 
fessing Christians among our freedmen, for 
whom the Bible has been a sealed book. Just in 
proportion to the clearness of their understand- 
ing of the great Text-Book, will be the progress 
of devout souls in the school of Christ. And 
the two essential requisites for grasping the 
meaning of the Scriptures, are spiritual-minded- 
ness and mental culture. Once more, persistence 
in one's devotion to God, the abiding character 
of one's piety, not unfrequently depends on men- 
tal culture. A man of cultured mind usually 
" counts the cost " before he undertakes to build 
a Christian character. He is almost certain to 
get a good start in the way. Or, if culture fol- 
lows conversion, it deepens the work previously 
wrought, strengthens the motives for persever- 
ance, and helps one hold himself steadily to the 
duties of the Christian life. He is unmoved by 
temptations which drive the uncultured back to 
the ways of sin. He does not doubt his -own 
experience, and give up his faith in the Bible, be- 
cause some prominent Christian has apostatized. 



164 MENTAL CULTURE. 

Hy the use of his reason, he extracts the stings 
from a thousand ills which harass and tempt 
the Christian of undeveloped mind. He is large- 
ly saved from "wandering thoughts" by his 
mental discipline. He detects the sophistry of 
infidels and the ' ' wiles of the Devil. ' ' All observ- 
ation will confirm the statement that a much 
smaller proportion of cultured, than of uncult- 
ured, Christians, forsake the ways of God. 
Thus mental culture often decides whether a 
man wins or loses heaven. 

It is not the purpose of this essay to plead for 
any special means of mental culture, but to call 
attention to the desirableness of the result. In 
fact, the means are so evident, and so easy of 
access, as to render such work almost unneces- 
sary: schools of all grades abound; books and 
periodicals bring the means of culture to our 
firesides; lectures on important topics are given 
by educated men; the science and the literature 
of the world are popularized and simplified; a 
thousand lights are thrown on the Scriptures by 
the labors of devout scholars. Of course the 
young Christian, who is not providentially hin- 
dered, ought to consecrate many years to men- 
tal culture, in those schools and colleges which 
afford one proof that God calls us to cultivate 
our minds. The "signs of the times" indicate 
that the "rising generation" of Christians 
ought to prepare themselves for valiant service 



MENTAL CULTURE. 165 

in the arena of intellectual strife, into which the 
interests of the Church are so largely thrown. 
Let the ministers of Christ preach a ' ' holy crus- 
ade" against ignorance: a more worthy object 
than the rescue of "the Holy Sepulcher" may 
stir their souls. There are battles against sin 
and sophistry, wherein only the "polished 
shafts ' ' of disciplined minds will find their way 
to "the hearts of the King's enemies." And 
"never too late to learn"; "the pursuit of 
knowledge under difficulties ' ' is the only possi- 
ble method to those whose years or circumstan- 
ces prevent their drinking from those fountains 
supplied by the beneficent patrons of Christian 
education. Many examples of great culture, 
where the usual means were not accessible, stim- 
ulate such to earnest endeavor. Let "spare 
time" be spent in gaining mental discipline, or 
in acquiring useful knowledge. Let our mental 
faculties, so often a neglected portion of God's 
heritage, be cultured with patient toil for our 
Master's sake. Let us observe the whole of 
"the first and great commandment": "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." 



166 



ENOCH: or, WALKING WITH GOD. 

"Enoch walked with God."— Genesis, 5:24. 

A few verses in the fifth chapter of Genesis suf- 
fice to give the record of a remarkable life, 
which ended not in death, but in translation. 
This record is as suggestive as it is brief. It oc- 
curs in the midst of a genealogical list where 
the words, " and he died," close the biographies 
of all others. In the few words of the text and 
the context, as by a few strokes of an artist, a 
character is drawn, a life is exhibited. Neither 
the length of a biography, nor the eloquence of 
a eulogy, nor the statements on tombstones, 
can be accepted as proof of the purity of a 
man's life, the nobleness of his aims, the extent 
of his usefulness, or his value by God's standard. 
Many men whose closed lives simply called for a 
passing notice, over whose graves ought to be 
written, "He was born, and he died," — little 
difference whether the dates, or even the names, 
were given — have had their last resting-places 
marked by costly slabs or towering monuments 
inscribed with words unmeaning or untrue. 
Over the philanthropic John Howard's grave in 
a foreign land, are these words, "He lived for 



WALKING WITH GOD. 167 

others." That brief characterization of his life 
is weighty enough for a dozen discourses on 
benevolence and prison-reform. So the charac- 
ter-sketch in our text is full of suggestiveness. 

The text sets before us Enoch's fellowship with 
God. The peculiar expression, "walked with 
God," occurs only here and in the next chapter, 
where we read, " Noah was a just man and per- 
fect in his generations, and Noah walked with 
God." A phrase of so peculiar construction, 
and applied only to Enoch and to the man 
whose faith and righteousness led to his selec- 
tion as the new father of the human race, is 
worth our study. Dr. Jamieson says it is "a 
common phrase in eastern countries, denoting 
constant and familiar intercourse." This seems 
a more natural meaning than that given by an- 
other eminent commentator, who thinks the 
phrase is to be understood of a " prophetic life 
spent in immediate converse with the spiritual 
world." In the Epistle of Jude we are told that 
Enoch prophesied; but his spirituality, his saint- 
liness, his friendship with God, fitted him to be a 
prophet in the midst of the ungodly. " Shall I 
hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" 
said the Lord when he was about to overthrow 
Sodom and Gomorrah. Not that Abraham was 
a prophet, but that he was "the friend of God." 
Our first parents, made in the Creator's "image " 
and "likeness," were, perhaps, accustomed to 



168 WALKING WITH GOD. 

hearing "the voice of the Lord God walking in 
the garden in the cool of the day," and only 
shrunk from the hitherto blessed visitation be- 
cause they had sinned. After reading of man's 
expulsion from Eden, of the wickedness of the 
first son of the first pair, how cheering to find a 
man born more than three hundred years before 
Adam died, of whom it is said, he "walked with 
God." Enoch appears to have lived, surround- 
ings of course excepted, much as Adam would 
have lived if he had not sinned; not with the 
same ease, nor by the same means. Perchance 
as he shows us the better way of living, by his 
walking with God, his translation may show us 
a better way of leaving the world than by dying. 
This fellowship with God is for all who seek 
it. The apostle John declares, " Our fellowship 
is with the Father, and with his son Jesus 
Christ." The familiar benediction with which 
Paul closes his Second Epistle to the Corinthi- 
ans, prays that "the communion of the Holy 
Ghost 1 ' may be with those brethren. But the 
word "communion" is a translation of the 
Greek word often translated, as in John, "fellow- 
ship." How sacredly intimate is this "fellow- 
ship of the Spirit," as Paul calls it in Philippi- 
ans. How near that Spirit comes to a believing 
soul. How personal and tender his relation to 
us and interest in us, when we are urged to 
"grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." This fel- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 169 

lowship with God is constant communion with 
God. He who enjoys it fulfills the command, 
"Pray without ceasing." He has seasons of 
prayer, but he has also uninterrupted converse 
with the Savior. He has more than faith; he 
has trust: he rests in God. Bengel, the well- 
known commentator, was said to be mighty in 
prayer. A gentleman secreted himself one even- 
ing where he could look into Bengel's window, 
and waited to hear that devoted man plead 
with God. Weary, and nearly overcome with 
sleep, Bengel at last gave up his work, folded 
his tired hands over his open Bible, closed his 
eyes, and this was his prayer: ' ' Lord Jesus, thou 
knowest me; we are on the same old terms. 
Amen." For many of us, such language would, 
even under such circumstances, be irreverent; 
but in a man like Bengel, these words are a rev- 
elation of the inner life. What is said of Moses 
may become true of any thoroughly devout 
Christian: "The Lord spake unto Moses face to 
face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." (Exo- 
dus, 33:11.) 

This fellowship brings great privileges and 
blessings in special manifestations — if we may 
not say revelations — of God to the soul. The 
saintly Enoch became God's mouthpiece to the 
sinners of that day. Our Lord said, as recorded 
in the fourteenth of John, "He that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him 



170 WALKING WITH GOD. 

and will manifest m\ r self to him." In the next 
chapter are these words, "I have called you 
friends; for all things that I have heard of my 
Father, I ha\^e made known unto you." Yet 
ei T en among the apostles, to whom these words 
were spoken, there was an inner circle of three 
who alone were with Jesus at the raising of the 
dead maiden, on the mount of transfiguration, 
and in the struggle in Gethsemane. Of these 
three, Peter, James and John, the last was spec- 
ially "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who was 
nearest him at the last supper, and who, after 
the Savior's resurrection, at once discerned the 
Master when the net was filled with fish, and 
exclaimed, "It is the Lord!" The being num- 
bered among God's inner circle of friends, and 
enjoying the special privilege of entering into 
the inner sanctuary, is not a result of Divine 
caprice or arbitrary choice, but of Christian con- 
secration, of Christlikeness. Spiritual sight and 
spiritual insight are dependent on spirituality^. 
' l The secret of the Lord is with them that fear 
him, and he will show them his covenant." 

We are apt to think our surroundings unfa- 
vorable to this walking with God; to excuse our- 
selves from a high grade of piety by pleading 
our lack of privileges and our superabundance 
of toils and trials. We are "cumbered with 
much serving," worn out with family cares, and 
have no time to cultivate our spiritual life. Or, 



WALKING WITH GOD. 171 

we live in a godless community, Christian peo- 
ple and spiritual helps are scarce, and the very 
atmosphere of the place is surcharged with 
worldliness and impiety. But it is the world 
within, not the world without, that hinders us. 
We need not to get away from or out of the 
world, but to get the world out of us. Look at 
the surroundings of Enoch: he was not a re- 
cluse, forsaking God's world in order to find the 
world's God and Maker; read the record: 
"Enoch walked with God three hundred years, 
and begat sons and daughters." In spite of 
family cares and home distractions, he ''walked 
with God." Consider the state of society in his 
time. Dr. Murphy, commenting on this pas- 
sage, says of the Hebrew original, "Here, for 
the first time, we have God with the definite ar- 
ticle, with which it occurs more than four hun- 
dred times." Hence he translates, "Enoch 
walked with the God. ' ' The denial of the true 
God had already commenced. The language 
used in the Epistle of Jude shows that ungodli- 
ness was the characteristic of Enoch's time, and 
the name of Enoch's first son, Methuselah — 
meaning "man of the dart, or sword" — may 
indicate the unbrotherliness, the social disorder, 
or the feuds of those early days. As to his spir- 
itual helps and privileges, it has been remarked 
by another that Enoch had no Sabbath, no 
Church, no Bible, and no Savior. Certainlv he 



172 WALKING WITH GOD. 

had not these in the same sense in which we may 
say we have them. Yet under these adverse cir- 
cumstances of family cares, general wickedness, 
and dearth of spiritual aids, Enoch, almost like 
Abdiel, described by Milton, was "faithful found 
among the faithless." 

Enoch's fellowship with God is notable for its 
constancy: he "walked with God three hundred 
years." No wonder he was translated. Hold- 
ing familiar converse with God for so long a 
time, growing better as the world grew worse, 
developing his soul for centuries after his body 
had attained its growth, spiritual gravity 
would almost draw him to the heavenly world, 
when God gave him permission to cut loose 
from earth. In comparison with such a record 
of constancy, how our vacillating experience 
and frequent lapses shame us. We have had 
seasons of fellowship with God; we remember 
these bright spots in our spiritual life, as one 
might remember the beautiful but infrequent 
oases in a desert through which he had jour- 
neyed. Our fellowship is occasional; Enoch's 
was constant; ours is impulsive, almost unnat- 
ural; his was habitual, and, therefore, natural. 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told 
that Enoch's translation was "by faith." Of 
course the life of fellowship that prepared him 
for this translation, was a life of faith. He had 
full confidence in God, for he knew God. He was 



WALKING WITH GOD. 173 

a constant, loyal, happy man of God, because 
he was a man of faith. His life is imitable be- 
cause we have the same means of conquering 
the world: " This is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our faith." Let us use the 
means at our command, cultivate our spiritual 
nature, be constant in "walking with God," 
and realize the truth of a believer's remark, ".I 
have as good a Savior as Saint Paul had." 



174 



SIMEON: or, CHRIST REVEALED. 

"And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he 
should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ."— 
hv ke, 2:26. 

Let us consider the matter of this revelation: 
before Simeon's death, the Messiah was to come 
and Simeon would see him . The word ' ' Christ, ' ' 
which comes to us from the Greek, and the word 
" Messiah," which is of Hebrew origin, both 
mean "anointed," and refer to an ancient cus- 
tom of inducting into office kings, priests and 
prophets. Jesus was the Lord's anointed, or 
"the Lord's Christ." He was Divinely chosen 
as the Savior of the world. All this is included 
in the double name so often used, Christ Jesus, 
or, Jesus Christ, meaning Anointed Savior. 
How great a privilege we count it to see the 
chosen of men — rulers, statesmen, orators, 
authors, warriors, leaders of their fellows, 
"kings of men." What crowds lined even the 
county roads in West's last years, to get a 
glimpse of that mighty man of God. How the 
people thronged around La Fayette on his last 
visit to America. What surging seas of human- 
ity welcomed our own Grant on his return from 
his journey round the world. Thus anxious are 
we to see the chosen of men; but Simeon was to 



CHRIST REVEALED. 175 

see the chosen of God, the Lord's anointed 
prophet, priest and king, of whom he had de- 
clared through Isaiah, "Behold my servant, 
whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul 
delighteth." 

The Messiah's coming had been looked for and 
longed for by all who were familiar with the 
promises and prophecies of the Old Testament. 
Among the Gentiles, even where the Jewish 
writings and doctrines were unknown, there 
were some expectations of a great Deliverer. 
Christ was the " Desire of all nations," and was 
to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the 
glory of thy people Israel." How happy was 
Simeon's lot: his eyes were to see the fruition of 
the world's hopes and the fulfillment of God's 
promise of a Savior. As an individual, this rev- 
elation would be a source of great joy; as a 
patriot, his heart must have been filled with 
happiness that the chosen Jewish nation was 
soon to be blest by the advent of the Messiah; 
as a lover of the human race, Simeon would 
greatly rejoice, for the record shows that he un- 
derstood the mission of Christ to be to all the 
world. It would seem that the exact time of 
Christ's coming was not revealed to Simeon; he 
was only assured that "he should not see death 
before he had seen the Lord's Christ." 

The manner of this revelation deserves notice. 
First, it was in answer to pra}^er. This is a 



176 CHRIST REVEALED. 

legitimate inference from the Greek word here 
translated "revealed." It properly signifies a 
response in reply to a request, and was used 
among the Greeks to denote an oracle or answer 
given to a worshiper who sought to learn some- 
thing of the future. In some of the few instances 
of the use of this word in the New Testament, 
the connection shows that the revelation was 
in answer to prayer. The Vulgate so interprets 
the text, and the accurate translation is given 
in the Rhemish Testament, "He had received an 
answer from the Holy Ghost." This interpreta- 
tion is in harmony with the statement in the 
preceding verse, that Simeon was "waiting for 
the Consolation of Israel." His heart was full 
of longing for the coming of the Messiah, and 
with prayer he was "waiting" for the fulfill- 
ment of the Messianic prophecies. 

The manner of the revelation is to be seen also 
in the statement that it was "by the Holy 
Ghost." How the Spirit communicated this 
joyful news is uncertain. It may have been in a 
dream, or in a waking vision, or by an impres- 
sion on his mind, or by some other means. At 
a later date it is said, " The Holy Ghost was not 
yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glori- 
fied." It was not so fully given, it was not gen- 
erally given, but the specially devout souls of 
all the ages before Christ's coming, had mani- 
festations of the Spirit . Christ sent the Spirit to 






CHRIST REVEALED. 177 

be with all his followers, and to "convince the 
world of sin, of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment." How could Simeon be sure he was not 
in error as to the source of his supposed revela- 
tion? Fanatics often claim communications 
from God. But Simeon was a student of, and a 
believer in, the Scriptures. His hopes and pray- 
ers were founded on the inspired Word of God. 
Besides, he had evidently sought for additional 
knowledge and prayed that he might live to 
welcome the Lord's Anointed. The Divine con- 
sistency in making this special revelation to 
Simeon will further appear as we proceed. 

We may well note the man to whom the Spirit 
communicated this revelation. God's spiritual 
favors, of this sort, are not scattered broadcast 
among his children. Many Christians are not 
sufficiently developed to receive the higher gifts 
of the Spirit. Spiritual vision, like natural, re- 
quires an eye as well as light; and there are 
many weak-eyed and near-sighted Christians, 
who never get a full view of spiritual things. 
Everything depends on character, sincerity, de- 
votion. Of Simeon it is recorded that he "was 
just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of 
Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him." 
W T e may profitably study this description. 

First, this man was "just," or righteous: he 
had integrity of character; he did his duties to 
his fellow-men; he was a moral man. The right 



178 CHRIST REVEALED. 

kind of men are lovers of their kind. "Whoso- 
ever doeth not righteousness is not of God, 
neither he that loveth not his brother." It is 
foolish to trust in our morality, instead of 
Christ; it is wicked to be proud of our morality; 
hut it is no sin to he a moral man. So far, so 
good; and some so-called "religious" people 
would do well to cultivate downright honesty 
toward man. 

But Simeon was more than just: he was also 
"devout"; that is, he had real reverence for 
God; he was a worshiper, and sought to do his 
duty to God, as well as to be upright in his rela- 
tions to men. Piety is not an unnecessary^ addi- 
tion to morality; much less is it a substitute for 
morality. It is simply an extension of the same 
principle of justice, or righteousness, to our rela- 
tions to God. It is the natural accompaniment, 
the complement of morality, and essential to 
completeness of human development and to the 
rounding out of human character. There is 
nothing unnatural or unmanly in being relig- 
ious; rather, 

"A Christian is the highest style of man." 

It is also said of Simeon, that he was "wait- 
ing for the Consolation of Israel." When the 
Savior was about to "leave the world and go 
unto the Father," he said to his disciples, in 
promising the Holy Spirit, "I will pray the 
Father, and he shall give you another Comfort- 



CHRIST REVEALED. 179 

er." Jesus was the Comforter whose place the 
Holy Spirit was to take. To him the reference 
is made in the words, "the Consolation of Is- 
rael." The thoughts and prayers of Simeon 
were centered on the "Lord's Christ." It was 
the business of his life, the sweet employment of 
his time, to study the Scriptures that announced 
the coming of the Savior, and to gaze with long- 
ing eyes and prayerful heart to discern the signs 
of the advent of the Messiah. Men whose 
thoughts and lives find their center in Christ, 
are well fitted to receive "an answer from the 
Holy Ghost " to their prayers. 

It is added to this description of Simeon, that 
"the Holy Ghost was upon him." Not only did 
the Spirit give him a special revelation; he was 
with that devout man as a constant presence, 
an abiding guest, a continual inspiration. His 
experience was exceptional in those days: but 
we live under the dispensation of the Spirit, and 
all who will may have this blessed Comforter 
who, said the Master, is sent "that he may 
abide with you forever." May we be "just and 
devout," with the "Consolation of Israel" as 
our great theme; so will the Holy Ghost be our 
daily Companion. 

Thus far, our study of this subject has consid- 
ered only the prophetic revelation of Christ to 
Simeon; we must not close our investigation 
without considering the personal revelation by 



180 CHRIST REVEALED. 

which God fulfilled his promise. Having noted 
the matter, the manner, and the man, we now 
come to the manifestation. Simeon's home was 
in Jerusalem. He was evidently an aged man. 
Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and 
Mary fled to Egypt, and on their return settled 
in Nazareth. So far as we know, the child Jesus 
was never in the temple, or in Jerusalem, but 
once till he had reached the age of twelve years. 
That first visit was when his mother brought 
him on the occasion of her ceremonial "purifica- 
tion." But Simeon was in no danger of missing 
the sight of the " Lord's Christ ": God keeps his 
promises. So the aged man "came by the Spirit 
into the temple" at exactly the right time for 
the beatific vision of which that Spirit had as- 
sured him. The omniscient Spirit brought 
about this manifestation. It is a privilege and 
a proof of our being the "sons of God," when 
we are "led by the Spirit of God." Simeon was 
in the temple, to welcome the temple's Lord on 
his first entrance into that holy place. "And 
when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to 
do for him after the custom of the law, then 
took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, 
and said, ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation.'" So fully was 
this man under the influence of the Spirit, that 
he at once recognized the " Lord's Christ "in the 
"child Jesus." 



CHRIST REVEALED. 131 

Howgreat his joy at the fruition of his hopes, 
the answer to his prayers, the fulfillment of 
God's promise. As he took the infant Savior in 
his arms, he must have "blessed God" with a 
full heart. The manifestation of Christ to a be- 
lieving soul is always a cause of great happiness. 

But this view of Christ also made Simeon feel 
that he could " depart in peace." He had lived 
to see the " Consolation of Israel " for whom he 
had been long" waiting." It seemed to him the 
supreme moment of his life had come, the object 
of his aspirations had been attained, and he was 
ready to leave the world. Nothing so prepares 
us to "see death," as a sight of the Savior. 
May none of us be called from the world till we 
have first "seen the Lord's Christ." We need 
not wait, as did Simeon, till old age or approach- 
ing death, for the Savior will manifest himself 
to us at any time, on very simple conditions: 
" He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is thatloveth me: and he that loveth 
me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love 
him, and will manifest myself to him. ' ' He who 
fails in securing this manifestation of Christ, 
knows not the truest happiness and greatest j oy 
of life; and to postpone our seeking of the Sav- 
ior, leaves us in danger of dying without a view 
of Christ revealed. 



1S2 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

"The parched grounds-hall become a pool." — Isaiah, 85.7. 

The mirage has been briefly denned as " an op- 
tical illusion arising from an unequal refraction 
in the lower strata of the atmosphere." The 
word is applied to several classes of phenomena, 
but it is sufficient for our present purpose, to 
give a short description of the mirage of the 
desert. A quotation from Dr. Thomas Dick will 
enable all»to get a clear understanding of this 
remarkable illusion. 

' 4 M. Monge, who accompanied the French 
army to E\ r gpt, relates that, when in the desert 
between Alexandria and Cairo, the mirage of 
the blue sky was inverted, and so mingled with 
the sand below as to give to the desolate and 
arid wilderness an appearance of the most rich 
and beautiful country. They saw, in all direc- 
tions, green islands, surrounded with extensive 
lakes of pure, transparent water. Nothing could 
be conceived more lovely and picturesque than 
the landscape. In the tranquil surface of the 
lakes, the trees and houses with which the islands 
were covered were strongly reflected with vivid 
and varied hues, and the party hastened forward 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 183 

to enjoy the cool refreshments of shade and 
stream which these populous villages proffered 
to them. When they arrived, the lake on whose 
bosom they floated, the trees among whose foli- 
age they were embowered, and the people who 
stood on the shore inviting their approach, had 
all vanished, and nothing remained but a uni- 
form and irksome desert of sand and sky, with 
a few naked huts and ragged Arabs. Had they 
not been undeceived by their nearer approach, 
there was not a man in the French army who 
would not have sworn that the visionary trees 
and lakes had a real existence in the midst, of 
the desert. 

Dr. Clark observed precisely the same appear- 
ances at Rosetta. The city seemed surrounded 
with a beautiful sheet of water; and so certain 
was his Greek interpreter — who was unacquaint- 
ed with the the country — of this fact, that he 
was quite indignant at an Arab who attempted 
to explain to him that it was a mere optical de- 
lusion. At length they reached Rosetta in about 
two hours, without meeting with any water; 
and, on looking back on the sand they had just 
crossed, it seemed to them as if they had waded 
through a vast blue lake." 

It is, no doubt, to this illusion of the desert, 
that the text refers. The Hebrew term trans- 
lated "parched ground," -was long ago trans- 
lated by Bishop Lowth, in his work on Isaiah, 



184 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

"glowing sand," and explained by him as an al- 
lusion to the mirage. Critical scholars general- 
ly take this view of the text. The Revised Ver- 
sion translates it the same as Bishop Lowth, 
but puts "mirage" as another rendering, which 
would make the text read, "The mirage shall 
become a pool." A careful reading of this chap- 
ter will make it evident that under the figure of 
remarkable changes in nature, the future joy and 
glory of God's ancient people were illustrated. 
Better days were coming: "The wilderness and 
the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the 
desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." 
The disappointments of the chosen people should 
cease; the good that had been seeming, should 
become real; where the illusory lake proved to 
be only "glowing sand," should be refreshing 
water: " The mirage shall become a pool." 

This chapter seems to be a prophecy of Gospel 
blessings. Its completest fulfillment is certainly 
in the privileges and gifts of the spiritual king- 
dom established by Christ . The text has a natur- 
al application to the "living water" which our 
Savior came to give to those who found else- 
where only a mirage. The mirage deceives be- 
cause it looks exactly like the prime necessity of 
life — water. The world appears to offer all the 
elements of happiness: it promises much, but it 
does not keep its promise. See how eagerly men 
rush toward the apparent water, only to find 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 185 

hot, "glowing sand." Let us note a few of the 
illusions of the mirage of life. 

The world promises man great refreshment 
and happiness through his senses. Multitudes 
are persuaded that in this desert world there is, 
just before them, a stream or sea of sensual de- 
light. They live to eat, or live to gratify some 
other appetite or desire of their lower nature. 
But how difficult to be an epicure without devel- 
oping into a glutton. The daintiest food, 
though it please the palate, becomes a source of 
discomfort, pain and disease to the gourmand. 
For the privilege of gratifying his taste, he pays 
the price of uneasy days and restless nights. 
What a lake of delights seems to exist in those 
stimulants that for a time spiritualize the bodily 
senses and quicken the action of man's mental 
powers. Poets in almost every age have pic- 
tured the delights of the wine cup. But how 
soon that fair enchantress makes a slave and a 
physical wreck of those who listen to her voice. 
The delights of vision are not of an enduring 
character. 

" Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, 
Fades in the eye and palls upon the sense.'' 

Solomon said, "The eye is not satisfied with 
seeing, nor the ear with hearing." Music, like 
all other charms of hearing, soon wearies us; 
or, a cultivated musical ear is oftener offended 
than pleased. Whether the sensualism be gross 
or refined, how unreasonable to expect that 



186 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

man, a spiritual dweller in a house with five 
doors called senses, will find the happiness of his 
real self, his higher nature, in the gratification 
of his animal appetites. 

" Blush at fondness for a life 

Which sends ceU stial sonls on errands vile. 
To cater lor the sen^e; and serve at boards 
Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps 
Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand. 
Luxurious fea.-t! a soul, a soul immortal, 
In all the dainties of a brute bemircd!" 

Truly, the promised delights of sensualism of 
every grade, are usually low in degree, and alwa}-s 
low in kind, and so are but the mirage of life. 

Wealth, as affording an opportunity for the 
gratification of the senses, or for some other low 
form of pleasure, is almost universally desired 
and often eagerly sought. But this mirage often 
flees as we move toward it, for few become rich. 
Many are like the man who said, "I set out in 
life resolved to be worth fourteen hundred thou- 
sand dollars; I have the four teen, but the ciphers 
bother me." But if we reach this semblance of 
water, it is only dirt, "parched ground." Be- 
sides the failure of sensual joys to satisfy, the 
cares which wealth brings may well suggest the 
woe which the prophet Habakkuk pronounces 
on "him that ladeth himself with thick clay." 

The world promises great happiness through 
place and power, and hence ambition lures men 
on towards the refreshing waters which the 
illusive mirage spreads out before them. But a 
great ambition is almost sure to be disappointed 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 187 

in reaching the summit for which it strives. The 
first places are few. Not many men now living 
can fill the office of President of this country. 
Even for the lower — yes, for the lowest — offices, 
there are many, often hundreds of aspirants; 
disappointment comes to a multitude when an 
appointment comes to one. Men of great am- 
bition have died of broken hearts at the failure 
of their plans and hopes. The few whom fickle 
fortune favors, find not the happiness whose 
attainment the world promised. The historian 
Gibbon records his opinion that the possession 
of a crown never satisfied the cravings of an 
ambitious mind. And how many have reached 
the higher rounds of the ladder, only to fall, 
with crushed hopes and bleeding hearts, to the 
dead level of our common humanity, or to a 
level below that. Mark the great Napoleon at 
the zenith of his power and influence. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of men followed him to bat- 
tle; all Europe shook beneath his tread, and his 
name inspired fear in the hearts of the rulers of 
nations. What hosts of British and Prussian 
soldiers it required tOwin the battle of Waterloo 
by a hair's-breadth. But how few soldiers it 
required to keep this ' ' man of destiny ' ' on the 
island of Saint Helena till his death. He was 
deceived by the mirage of life. 

Knowledge and culture, which are greatly to 
be desired for their usefulness, are disappointing 



188 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

as to the pleasure they afford to those who pur- 
sue them as the object of life. "Much study is 
a weariness of the flesh," and the unattainable 
enlarges its proportions according to one's prog- 
ress in knowledge. In a state of mental and 
bodily vigor, one may find a pleasure in the pur- 
suit of knowledge, as well as in its acquisition. 
But unsolvable problems perplex the students of 
history, science, literature — indeed not only is it 
true that 

" Much learning shows bow little mortals know," 

but how much they only "know in part,'' or 
can not know at all with any degree of cer- 
tainty. The world is too large, the heaven is 
too high, the subjects for study are too numer- 
ous, for man to grasp all before this life's close. 
He can never hope, in this world, to get be^-ond 
the primary department of nature's school. 
Let him make as great attainments as the great 
Newton, he must die feeling that "the great 
ocean of truth lies unexplored before me. ' ' How 
disappointing is this to one whose sole aim in 
life is to be a knower and a thinker. He finds 
that life is a mirage. 

All things which this world has to offer, can 
not satisfy man's craving for happiness. Lord 
Byron said he could count up eleven perfeetfy 
happy days in his life, but he doubted if he 
should live long enough " to make out the round 
dozen." A noted German scholar thought the 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 189 

really happy days of his life (a full day of hap- 
piness, only, being reckoned,) would amount to 
about a month. Lord Chesterfield, wealthy, 
cultured, honored, the pet of England's nobility 
and royalty, confessed, near the close of his life, 
that he had got so little out of the world that 
he would not care to live his life over again. 
What then, let me ask, is the real value of this 
world's "promise to pay"? It beckons us on- 
ward by most enchanting landscapes; it paints 
the blue sky on the desert, and calls the picture, 
"water"; and though our own experience con- 
firms the testimony of others, we continue to 
believe that the lake of refreshing water we see 
now, is real, and not "glowing sand." When 
shall we become convinced that life is a mirage? 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ will do for us what 
the delusive world promises to do; it will not 
mock our hopes by giving hot sand instead of 
cool water: it will make good the words of the 
text, "The mirage shall become a pool." Real 
water shall be given, for "In the wilderness shall 
waters break out, and streams in the desert." 
You who have been deceived by the mirage of 
life, come and find refreshment in the "living 
water" which the Savior gives. "If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 

See that young man, with plenty of money, 
starting out to "see the world" and "have a 
good time." He does not see or enjoy what he 



190 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

anticipated. Money gone, time wasted, morals 
damaged, soul injured, clothing in rags, body 
wasted and hunger-bitten, he has been deceived 
by the mirage of life. But mark! he is now un- 
deceived; his good sense returns; he becomes 
thoughtful; he is humbled and repentant; he 
sees one chance of measurable comfort; (for he 
does not expect much happiness now, because 
his experience has well-nigh destroyed his hopes); 
he makes a resolve, "I will arise and go to my 
father." You know what a welcome his father 
gave him, what a grand reception was held in 
the home of wealth at the return of the penni- 
less boy. At last he found, at home, the happi- 
ness he vainly sought in a " far country." Poor, 
disappointed wanderer, is your faith in the 
world lost? Do not lose faith in God; do not 
despair of happiness: come home to \ T our Father. 
All your fondest hopes shall be more than real- 
ized. However strongly the joy and satisfaction 
of a Christian life may be presented to you, a 
thorough experience of the saving grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ will make you feel like saying, 
"The half was not told me." "Eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him." 



191 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

" What, shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?"— 
Matthew, 27:22. 

The question of the text was asked by Pon- 
tius Pilate, sitting on the "judgment-seat," of 
the accusers of the prisoner at the bar. The 
judge "knew that for envy they had delivered " 
Jesus. No evidence had been produced, for, a 
moment later, Pilate asks the prosecutors and 
persecutors, "What evil hath he done?" Yet 
this Roman judge asks a Jewish mob led by men 
bent on destroying Christ, what he shall do 
with the prisoner before him. 

It is evident that Pilate must have asked of 
himself, and more than once, the question he pro- 
posed to the Jews, "What shall I do then with 
Jesus?" He was troubled by the presence of his 
prisoner. The Savior, accused, bound, envied, 
hated, conscious of the outcome of this travesty 
of a trial, was calm, dignified, silent; Pilate, the 
judge, was excited, confused, troubled. Yet that 
judge never, before or after, had a case brought 
before him so easy to decide as a question of jus- 
tice. His own judgment of the merits of the 
case was, "I find in him no fault at all." His 



192 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

conscience seems to have acted as counsel for the 
prisoner. His wife pleaded against the wrong 
of punishing "that just man." The Judge, in 
giving sentence of death, calls Jesus, "this just 
person." 

No wonder, then, that Pilate was troubled as 
to what he should do with the prisoner. He 
knew he ought to release him. But how could 
he do that, with so great a mob crying out so 
loudly and so often, " Crucify him"? This was 
the cause of the judge's trouble and anxiety. 
There was a battle raging within his breast. 
When a man's foes are " of his own household," 
he can endure it, if it is for conscience' sake he 
is hated and persecuted; but when, as in Pilate's 
case, a man's foes are in his own heart and mind, 
when conscience and judgment are fighting 
against expediency and wrong, when the man in 
him tries to shame the demagogue in him, when 
Pilate, the judge, rebukes Pilate, the governor, 
is it strange he should be troubled? Every man 
who has some of his manhood left, will have an 
internal conflict if, on some specially important 
occasion, he attempts to substitute expediency 
for right, popularity for duty. That was a no- 
ble sentiment which an American statesman ex- 
pressed: "I would rather be right than be 
President." 

Pilate resolved to do what he could to make 
peace in his own heart, by endeavoring to rid 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 193 

himself of the responsibility of deciding the case 
before him; and at the same time to keep peace 
with the accusers of Jesus, by yielding measura- 
bly to their demands. He found this temporiz- 
ing course beset with many difficulties, and it 
resulted, as all temporizing in such a case must, 
in the triumph of wrong. For our profit, and 
with applications to our own experience as we 
proceed, let us trace the efforts of this Roman 
judge to save his conscience without doing his 
duty. 

First, Pilate tried to answer the question — 
' ' What shall I do then with Jesus? ' ' — by attempt- 
ing to turn his prisoner over to the council or 
court of the Jews. Within certain limits, the 
Roman government permitted the Jews to de- 
cide questions of their own law and their own 
race. Pilate knew that Jesus was a Jew, and 
that it was for their opposition to him as a re- 
ligious teacher, that the Jewish leaders had se- 
cured his arrest, and had brought him before his 
tribunal. Hence he no doubt hoped for relief 
from responsibility, when he said, " Take ye him, 
and judge him according to your law." But the 
Jews to whom this offer was made, would be 
satisfied with nothing short of the death of 
Jesus: their answer showed this, and at the 
same time informed the governor that they 
would not accept his offer — ' ' It is not lawful for 
us to put any man to death." They were re- 



194 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

solved to keep the case before a court which had 
authority to pronounce a death sentence. 

We can not rid ourselves of personal responsi- 
bility as to what we shall do with Christ, be- 
getting some religious council, some body of men 
who understand this matter, to decide for us; 
Pilate failed, and we must fail. How many en- 
trust this personal question to the church to 
which thee- belong; thee- believe what the coun- 
cils and the authorities of their church have 
taught; thee- consider themselves clear of respon- 
sibility if others will assume it; they endeavor 
to merge themselves into the great mass of 
Christians, and so lose their ind vidual concern 
as to this great question. But each of us has a 
conscience of his own, each of us has a judgment 
of his own, (if he will exercise it) each of us has 
sins of his own, and, if we are saved from sin 
and hell, each of us must have a Savior of his 
own. Friend, put that question to yourself 
with the emphasis on the personal pronoun: 
"What shall I do then with Jesus.'' 

In the course of Pilate's consideration of this 
case, a statement w^as made by some of the peo- 
ple, that Jesus "stirreth up the people, teaching 
throughout all Jewre r , beginning from Galilee to 
this place." "When Pilate heard of Galilee, he 
asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as 
soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's 
jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 195 

also was at Jerusalem at that time." Happy 
mention of Galilee! Happy thought of Pilate 
to have Herod try his own subject! Happy re- 
lief from trouble and responsibility! Pilate, 
your second attempt will not succeed. Herod, 
after questioning and misusing Jesus, "sent him 
again to Pilate." 

Perhaps we have tried to get some individual 
to settle the question of our duty to Christ; 
some man in authority, like Herod, to whom 
such a question properly belongs: it is within 
his "jurisdiction." Not that Herod knew much 
of Jesus, except by hearsay: for we read that he 
had long wished to see Jesus, and "hoped to 
have seen some miracle done by him." To such 
a man, with no personal knowledge of the case, 
with no sympathy with Christ, with a coarse 
nature that, like Herod's, 'will maltreat and 
mock the Savior — to such a one, multitudes have 
endeavored to commit their responsibility. A 
blatant infidel gives us his opinion, his rhetoric, 
his jokes, his blasphemy, and we felicitate our- 
selves that we need be at no further trouble as 
to that perplexing question. But as Herod sent 
Jesus back to Pilate, so the Savior comes back 
to us. The question has not been answered, 
"What shall I do then with Jesus?" 

Pilate next made an attempt to settle the 
troublesome question by a compromise. After 
Jesus had been sent back by Herod, Pilate svmi- 



196 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

moned the Jewish authorities and declared that 
he had " found no fault in this man," nor had 
Herod. Now, Judge Pilate, what will you " do 
then with Jesus, which is called Christ?" You 
will say, will you not, "I find the accused not 
guilty. Prisoner, you are discharged"? No; 
this is the language of the judge, the great com- 
promiser: "I will therefore chastise him and re- 
lease him." Why should a judge propose to 
" chastise" an innocent man? The reason is 
evident; he must do something to appease the 
people. The tiger-mob clamored for blood. The 
judge was not willing to yield to the demand 
for the crucifixion of Jesus, but he would give 
them a taste of blood, b\ T severely punishing the 
innocent man. Did the compromise succeed? 
The rulers and the people still cried, " Crucify 
him, crucify him." Three times did Pilate urge 
the people to accept the compromise, only to in- 
crease their demand that Jesus should be cruci- 
fied. Thus failed the effort of this temporizing 
judge to save a part of his conscience without 
sacrificing his popularity. 

In his attempt to compromise with duty in 
his dealings with Christ, Pilate has millions of 
imitators. The} r are by no means ready to con- 
demn Jesus to death, or to sa3 r he suffered death 
justly. They do not join with the vulgar crowd 
in their hatred and blasphenn r of the Savior. 
Like Pilate, thev are convinced of the innocence 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 197 

— nay, more, of the sinlessness — of Jesus, and 
their better judgment urges them to do their 
whole duty to him. They, like Pilate, have 
learned that there is something exceptional in 
the Savior's nature and office: his conduct is in 
harmony with his claims to be the Son of God, 
the Monarch of a kingdom "not of this world," 
the divinely ordained "Witness to the truth." 
They see that it would be a high crime and a 
great danger for them to treat Jesus as an ordi- 
nary man; and as the governor "was the more 
afraid" when he heard that Christ claimed to 
be the Son of God, so they feel that it is dan- 
gerous to do less than their whole duty to King 
Jesus. But to do their whole duty would re- 
quire them to become, in the fullest sense, Christ- 
ians, and some selfish, worldly motives urge 
them to try a compromise. They will give 
Christ part of what is his due; they will not 
utterly reject him or ignore his claims. They 
will give some sort of observance to the Lord's 
Day; they will not absent themselves wholly 
from the house of God; they will put the Bible 
in a prominent place in their hom^s; they will 
aid in supporting the preaching of the Gospel. 
But they are not ready to do full justice to their 
Redeemer: not willing to grant "the subjection 
of the mind by faith, the subjection of the heart 
by love, and the subjection of the will by obedi- 
ence." Friend, if you are thus dealing with the 



198 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

question, "What shall I do with Jesus?"— you 
are doing as Pilate did. You are a time-server, 
and, judging you by the motives which you 
heed, is it not true that, with all your leanings 
toward duty, with all your regard for Christ, 
you are still a worldling? 

At the passover feast, then in progress, it was 
customary for the governor to release to the 
people any prisoner whom they desired. While 
the crowd was gathered before the judgment- 
seat, accusing Jesus, the people cried out, asking 
the governor to comply with this custom. Pi- 
late seized the opportunity to turn custom to 
account, by proposing to liberate Jesus . To add 
to the force of his argument to the people, he 
named Barabbas, a prisoner held for insurrec- 
tion and murder, and asked the people which he 
should release, Barabbas or Jesus. It no doubt 
seemed to him that the Jews could not do other- 
wise than choose the release of Jesus, one of 
their own nation, rather than that of a man 
like Barabbas. But the people, instigated by 
the chief priests, concluded to "ask Barabbas, 
and destroy Jesus." Thus failed Pilate's en- 
deavor to do his duty to Christ by compliance 
with a custom. 

Many in our day are seeking to accomplish 
the same result in a similar way. They will try 
to keep their consciences clear and to show their 
regard for Christ, by following custom, especial- 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 199 

ly by attending to religious customs: by observ- 
ing feasts and fasts, by being religious on Sun- 
days and devout during Lent, by complying 
with the regulations of the church to which the}^ 
belong — in a word, to regulate their religious 
deportment, instead of working at the reforma- 
tion of their characters and the cultivation of 
their religious life. Such may be good church- 
men, but they are poor specimens of Christians. 
Driven at last by the failure of his plans, by 
the clamor of the people, and, especially by their 
threat to accuse him to the Emperor — "If thou 
let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend: 
whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh 
against Cesar" — this Roman judge "gave sen- 
tence that it should be as they required," and 
"delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to 
be crucified." Yet, though the Jews had no au- 
thority to take life, though Pilate had said to 
Jesus, "I have power to crucify thee, and have 
power to release thee," he sought, after pro- 
nouncing the unrighteous sentence, to throw the 
responsibility on the people and the circumstan- 
ces, and thus to quiet his troubled conscience. 
So he " took water, and washed his hands before 
the multitude, saying 'I am innocent of the 
blood of this just person: see ye to it.' " The\ T 
were willing to accept the responsibility, and 
cried out, " His blood be on us and on our chil- 
dren." Their sin was greater than Pilate's, but 



200 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

his sin was great in being a demagogue while 
acting as judge, and in giving legal sanction to 
the greatest outrage on justice the world has 
ever known. Rome ruled a good part of the 
world. Pilate was a Roman officer, and would 
have been sustained, in any lawful course, b}- the 
whole power of the Roman government. He 
was anxious to release Jesus, he made several 
efforts to release him by strategy, he had the 
powder to release him, but, to "content the peo- 
ple," he sentenced Jesus to crucifixion, and 
then tried to throw all the responsibility on the 
Jews. 

Perhaps some of us, having personally and 
practicabw rejected Christ, are t^ing to ease 
our consciences by putting the blame on other 
people, or on our circumstances. As we are sit- 
uated, w^e say we can not do exactly right; we 
do wrong because others do wrong. The sharp 
practices of our fellow-tradesmen make it im- 
possible to be honest — without losing money. 
The general irreligiousness of our neighbors 
makes it impossible to be a Christian — without 
being singular. Oh that God would impress us 
that the great question is not what the masses 
of the people do or w^ant to do with Christ, but 
rather, "What shall I do then with Jesus, which 
is called Christ?" 

Sad result of a judge's indecision and wrong 
decision. Justice was trampled under foot, truth 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 201 

was slain, sin was triumphant, good men 
mourned, wicked men rejoiced, and all hell 
shouted "Victory!" till every fiend was hoarse. 

But stop! We have mistaken the nature and 
the results of this trial. It is well to sympathize 
with Jesus in his sufferings; but we must not 
forget that he came to die, that he was a willing 
sacrifice for the sins of the world, and that he is 
now glorified. His crucifixion-day is now known 
as "Good Friday," his resurrection has given 
us the Lord's Da} r , the Easter rejoicing, the hope 
of heaven. Pontius Pilate and the Jewish na- 
tion were the parties on trial; and God, sitting 
in judgment, pronounced them guilty of reject- 
ing his Son. Pilate, who feared the loss of his 
office, lost it a few years later, and died in politi- 
cal disgrace, probably by his own hand. The 
Jews were not so much the accusers of Christ, 
as the accused before God. He pronounced sent- 
ence on them, and the world has seen it executed. 
The Roman power whose aid they invoked to 
destroy Jesus, began the punishment of this 
wicked nation. They said, "His blood be on 
us, and on our children." It has been on them. 
They cried, " Crucify him!" — and not many years 
later, a historian of their own says the Romans 
crucified Jews in Jerusalem till there were lack- 
ing wood for crosses and places to stand the 
crosses. It is unsafe to reject Jesus Christ. 

As Jesus stood, silently and patiently waiting 



202 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

for Pilate's decision, so, 03^ the means of grace, 
by his Word, by his ordinances, by his Church, 
by his Spirit, he waits to see how you will an- 
swer the question, "What shall I do, then, with 
Jesus, which is called Christ? " But he is not on 
trial; it is you who are on trial, deciding your 
own destiny in deciding what you will do with 
him. 

We have been studying the proceedings before 
a judgment-seat. But there is another judg- 
ment-seat, and Christ will be the Judge. Before 
him shall stand Pontius Pilate, Jews, Gentiles, 
"all nations," "the dead, small and great.' ' 
The question then and there will not be, "What 
shall I do with Jesus, which is called Christ?" — 
but, "What will Jesus, who is Christ, do with 
me?" What will be his decision in your case? 
His decision depends on yours. 



203 



ABEL: or, THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

" By faith Abnl offered unto Gcd a more excellent sacrifice than 
Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God 
testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh."— 
Hebrews, 11:4. 

"Dead men tell no tales/' is a saying which 
passes for truth among criminals who think a 
dead witness of their villainy will be sure not to 
appear against them. But the saying is as false 
as the hearts of the men who think it true. 
Abel was dead; yet his murderer heard the great 
Judge declaring, "The voice of tlry brother's 
blood crieth unto me from' the ground," and re- 
ceived his sentence of banishment with a confes- 
sion of guilt. King David learned that dead 
Uriah had told the "living God" the story of 
the doublecrime: for Nathan, the Lord's messen- 
ger, repeated the tale in parable, and, when the 
king had condemned the crime, said, " Thou art 
the man." John the Baptist was slain by order 
of Herod; but though that ruler's creed did not 
include a belief in a resurrection, his guilty con- 
science made him believe that the miracle-work- 
ing Christ was John the Baptist risen from the 
dead. Jesus of Nazareth, dead, ceased for three 
days to rebuke the Jewish nation, but for eight 
een and a half centuries the ' ' story of the Cross ' ' 
has been shaming the Jew and saving the world; 



204 THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

while the "King of the Jews," whom they re- 
jected, has ruled them "with a rod of iron," and 
has become "King of men." 

"His voice is hushed in death" is a trite re- 
mark, but is true only on the surface. The mar- 
tyred Lincoln still speaks of " charity for all and 
malice towards none," still pleads that "gov- 
ernments of the people, by the people and for 
the people, may not perish from the earth." 
Often, indeed, death increases the power of the 
voice so that millions hear it. To some of the 
methods in which the dead speak to us and live 
among us, let us now turn. 

The dead live and speak by their example. 
What a man is and what he does, is often a 
mightier force after his death than before. This 
is especially true of men who are in advance of 
their generation. The "reformers before the 
Reformation," accomplished little in their life- 
time as compared with the work of Luther and 
his colaborers; but their example was a power- 
ful agency in stimulating their successors to 
plead and labor for "freedom to worship God." 
John Howard toiled almost alone to improve 
the sanitary and moral condition of the prisons 
of Europe; yet his example has raised up socie- 
ties and inspired individuals in almost every 
part of the civilized world. The example of 
men and women who have moved in the humb- 
ler spheres of life, often lives and works wonders 



THE SPEAKING DEAD. 205 

when the living worker has passed beyond mor- 
tal sight. Each of us can name one or more of 
the dead whose example has done much to mold 
our characters. 

Many speak after their death by their words 
of counsel or advice. Often parental counsel 
and entreaty "are unheeded till the death of the 
parent emphasizes them. How many have been 
won from sin by words of father and mother, 
long after their parents have left the world. 
John Newton rejected the counsel of his Christ- 
ian mother, became a great blasphemer, and en- 
gaged in the African slave-trade. But years 
after his mother went to her reward, Newton, 
filled with a sense of sin and fear, cried from the 
slave-ship, " God of my mother, have mercy on 
me!" He became a devout and eminent minister 
of Christ, and wrote many hymns which will 
probably be sung for ages to come. 

Men speak after death by their influence. In- 
fluence is as powerful and as subtle in its opera- 
tion as electricity. It depends not only on what 
a man is, what he says, what he does, but on 
some unexplained law by which a special bond 
exists between the soul of a man, and the souls 
of certain of his fellow-men who are drawn to 
him by an invisible and wonderful power, as the 
magnet draws the needle to itself, and magnet- 
izes it. Thus, within a certain limit, a man 
stamps his individuality, his spirit, on some of 



206 THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

his fellow-men, and through them he, "being 
dead, yet speaketh." And this subtle influence 
is probably about as near to perpetual motion 
as an3^thing is likely to come. When it will 
stop, when once started, even in this world, who 
can tell? 

Men live and work in the world, speak after 
death, by their discoveries and inventions. How 
mightily James Watt and George Stephenson 
are speaking in the steam power that is doing 
so much of the world's work. Hear the voice of 
Morse in the clicking in ten thousand telegraph 
offices. Note that most of the manufacturing is 
done by machinery invented by men now dead. 
Their power in the world has increased since 
their death. 

A man's wri tings often live when he is dead. 
His books contain the best that there was in 
him; they are, as the\^ are often called, his 
"works." By this means, many dead men are 
speaking to the present generation, and some 
will speak to all coming generations. And these 
literary works seem not only to live, but to be- 
get other books, and to mold the characters of 
men. Baxter wrote — first among his numerous 
books — ' ' The Saints ' Everlasting Rest . ' ' Philip 
Doddridge was led to Christ by that book, and, 
in addition to his commentary and many other 
works, he wrote the "Rise and Progress of Re- 
ligion in the Soul." By it William Wilberforce, 



THE SPEAKING DEAD. 207 

the friend of the slave, was converted. Wilber- 
force wrote a book entitled a " Practical View 
of Religion," which has had, like all the books 
here named, a large circulation, and which was 
blest to the conversion of Legh Richmond, 
whose "Dairyman's Daughter" has been trans- 
lated into more than fifty languages. Homer's 
works inspired Alexander the Great. In turn, 
Julius Cesar was inspired by the career of Alex- 
ander. The ■ ' Commentaries on the Gallic War, ' ' 
written by Cesar, made Charles XII of Sweden 
one of the bloodiest warriors of the world's his- 
tory. Even in dead languages, in Latin, Greek 
and Hebrew, dead men are speaking with 
mighty force to the living. Moses has been 
dead for more than three thousand years; the 
language in which he wrote, has long been a 
dead language; but see how Moses speaks in the 
science, the legislation and the morals of the 
present. David and other Hebrew psalmists 
have been dead for ages, but how they speak to 
millions of the present day by those matchless 
songs of devotion. 

But it is not only true that by these and other 
means the dead speak; it is also true that each 
of the dead, like each of the living, has a voice 
of his own. What any man will say to the 
world after his death, depends on what he says, 
what he does, and what he is, before his death, 
and on the conditions and surroundings of his 



208 THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

earthly life, and, sometimes, on the circum- 
stances of his death. A special case is brought 
before us in the text: dead Abel is represented as 
speaking. What does he say? Let us see if we 
can hear his words. 

Dead Abel says there is a future life. He was 
the second child born into this world. He was 
cut off in the morning of his life. He was slain 
for his righteousness and piety. Had he been 
less faithful to God, he might have lived to a 
good old age. As certainly as there is a just 
God, that fragmentary life of Abel's, that death 
of the first religious martyr, are in proof of life 
after death. It can not be that, under the gov- 
ernment of a just God, we are to see 

" Right forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne." 

Every case of suffering for righteousness' sake, 
is a Divine pledge of eternal life, for God will not 
permit the martyr-spirit to be unrewarded, will 
not suffer sin to be to a man's real and final ad- 
vantage. "The triumphing of the wicked is 
short." The Savior promised his disciples a 
hundred-fold in this life, " with persecutions; and 
in the world to come, eternal life." Stephen, for 
his fidelity to Christ, was stoned to death by 
his countrymen. But he saw heaven opened to 
welcome him, and said, " Lord Jesus, receive my 
spirit." Let Cain and his successors do their 
worst: God will take care of his own. 
Abel says that the true religion for fallen man 



THE SPEAKING DEAD. 209 

is a religion of sacrifice. " Cain brought of the 
fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." 
But Abel "also brought of the firstlings of his 
flock." Jehovah's acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, 
and his rejection of Cain's thank-offering, were 
evidently due to the character of the offerings as 
well as to the characters of the two men. Abel 
offered life in sacrifice, an acknowledgment of 
guilt, and a type of the redeeming, suffering, 
dying Savior of the world. Cain, wicked as he 
was, murderer as he soon became, was self- 
righteous, and hence his offering made no ac- 
knowledgment of sin and expressed no hope of 
or desire for a Savior. In these days we need to 
give special heed to the words of dead Abel. 
There are men who claim to be religious, and 
call themselves Christians, and yet deny the 
great Sacrifice. To them Jesus is an example 
worthy of imitation, a teacher worthy of rever- 
ence, but not a Savior. Let us repeat and em- 
phasize, in every possible manner, the words of 
Abel on this vital subject. Let Christ be set 
forth as the "Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world." The message that will 
bring joy and salvation to men is, "Man is a 
great sinner; Christ is a great Savior." High 
views of the " dignity of human nature " gener- 
ally go "with low views of the work of Christ, 
while low views of man's moral condition 
usually accompany exalted views of the nature 
and office of the Lord Jesus. 



210 THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

Abel says, to emphasize his words as to the 
religion of sacrifice, that God demands the obe- 
dience of faith. It was not a matter of the 
superior appropriateness of Abel's offering, but 
the fact seems to be that God instituted sacri- 
fice immediately after his promise of a Redeemer, 
made to fallen man. Jehovah has the right to 
say how he shall be worshiped, and how man is 
to be redeemed. Under the patriarchal and 
Mosaic dispensations, God was approached 
through animal sacrifices, significant of sin and 
typical of the death of Christ who was the 
"Lamb without blemish and without spot: who 
verily was foreordained before the foundation of 
the world, but was manifest in these last times/' 
Since the coming of Christ, it is God's plan that 
sinners shall be saved by approaching the mercy- 
seat in the name of Jesus, the "one Mediator 
between God and man." Abel showed his faith 
by obedience to the Divine requirement. We are 
not at liberty to choose our own way of ap- 
proaching God. And if, like Cain, we come in 
our own way instead of God's way, we shall 
find our offering unaccepted and our hearts still 
unhappy. 

One more truth which we get from this martyr 
who, "being dead, yet speaketh," is this: to the 
true worshiper, God gives the witness of accept- 
ance. Abel "obtained witness that he was 
righteous, God testifying of his gifts." He 



THE SPEAKING DEAD. 211 

knew that his sacrifice was accepted, and that 
God was his Friend. Surely, in these days of 
clearer light and greater privileges, the believ- 
ing, obedient worshiper need not be in doubt as 
to his acceptance with God. He may know that 
the Almighty loves him and is well-pleased with 
him; that he is " accepted in the Beloved." How 
great the joy that comes from this assurance. 
How it increases our love to God our Father. 
How it helps us to realize that Ave bear a per- 
sonal relation to Christ. How it transforms 
dtityr to delight, by substituting love for a per- 
son, in the place of fidelity to principle. How it 
enables us to be witnesses, to give testimony to 
the blessed results of the life of faith. Let us 
seek this assurance of the favor of God. 

Abel, so far as the record" informs us, was the 
first man who died. But unnumbered millions 
of men hav? since lived and died, and we shall 
soon join the number w r ho have gone "the way 
of all the earth . ' ' We have been listening to the 
voice of Abel, one of the speaking dead. What 
shall be the voice, and what the language, with 
which we shall speak to the world after we have 
left it? What influence shall we leave behind us? 
What words and works shall represent us when 
we are no longer among the living? What 
Christian charity, what enterprise for the bene- 
fit and salvation of our fellow-men, shall speak 
to coming generations, and convince them we 
used our mouev in a Christian wav? Shall 



212 THE SPEAKING DEAD. 

those whom we have helped in the struggle of 
life, "rise up and call us blessed"? Shall our 
children be helped to live and prepared to die, 
by the counsel. and the example by which we 
shall speak to them after our lips are silent? 
All depends on what we are, what we say, and 
what we do, before we die. Even in reference to 
our influence alone, we shall always be at work 
in this world; and we may well feel that we 
should live not for the present, but for the future. 
A painstaking artist, whose careful slowness a 
friend reproved, replied, "I work for eternity. 1 ' 
Let each of us work with the same object m 
view; not a selfish desire for the perpetuation of 
our name, but a purpose to leave behind us 
something to show that our horizon was not 
bounded by our grave. 

Our subject has led us to study only the earthly 
side of our future. But we must not forget that 
there is a personal immortality, as well as an 
immortality of influence. The character of our 
life after death, as well as the character of our 
influence, is dependent on the present. It is a 
solemn thing to live, when we keep in mind the 
endless results of living. It is blessed to live, if 
we are living as we ought to live. Each duty 
done, each cross borne, each deed of kindness 
wrought, will be a perpetual blessing to coming 
ages, and an addition to our happiness in the 
deathless world. Let us live as becomes those 
who expect to live forever. 



213 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

"When he slew them, then they sought him."— Psalms, 78:34. 

The text is one of many passages of scripture 
teaching that impending death often leads to a 
seeking of God. It evidently means that the 
fickle and faithless people were partly, or tem- 
porarily, aroused to their real condition, by the 
presence of some death-dealing agency which 
God sent among them. In prospect of death, or 
fearing death might be very near, they were 
anxious to make their peace with God. This 
may be called death-bed repentance, and to that 
subject let us give our thought. 

This sort of repentance is very common; in- 
deed so common as to justify the familiar line, 

' Men live as fools; as fcols they can not die." 

It is said that the Circassians, a kind of mon- 
grel Christians, divide their lives between sin 
and devotion, dedicating their youth to rapine 
and their old age to repentance. In ancient 
times, a man being asked whether he would pre- 
fer to be Croesus, the richest man, or Socrates, 
the wisest and best, replied, "I would like to be 
Croesus in life and Socrates in death." Homer 
tells us, as versified by Pope, 



214 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

" The weakest atheist- wretch all heaven defies, 
But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies.'" 

The practice known as " dela3 T ed baptism "grew 
up early in the history of the Christian Church, 
the object being to have one's sin washed away 
just before he died. Extreme unction in the Ro- 
man Catholic Church is designed to give a d3 r ing 
man the benefit of a special preparation for 
death. Mam-, if not the majority, of criminals 
condemmed to death, seek religious counsel 
and give themselves to religious exercises, and 
frequently murderers profess conversion and pre- 
paration for heaven, on the scaffold. 

The commonness of this death-bed repentance 
suggests several things to which we may give a 
brief consideration. (1.) Belief in, or fear of, a 
future state. Men are not, naturalh- or gener- 
ally, atheists and materialists. (2.) A perceiv- 
ed connection between the present and the future, 
or the relation of character to destiny. In spite 
of all theories as to future opportunities for re- 
pentance and reformation, men would like to 
leave this world with a full preparation for 
heaven. (3.) Human sinfulness. The average 
man does not feel that he is prepared to die. 
The near prospect of death makes him feel that 
he is not ready for judgment. (4.) The low 
views of sin commonly entertained. Sinisgocd 
enough to live in, but not good enough to die in. 
A whole life of wickedness is to be neutralized 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 215 

at the last moment by sorrow at impending pun- 
ishment. (5.) The high estimate placed on dy- 
ing experience and testimony. ' ' How did he die? ' ' 
— is often considered of more importance than 
" How did he live ? " 

To these remarks it seems proper to add that, 
practically, many who are not willing to admit 
it, believe there is a sacramental efficacy belong- 
ing to this late repentance. They will pre- 
pare for heaven, not by a life of piety and right- 
eousness, but by setting their house in order 
after death knocks at the door. The sudden 
death of a good man shocks some people because 
they think that, being called from earth with- 
out any warning, his soul may may not have 
been in in a thoroughly heavenly mood. By 
such views, a great part of man's probation for 
eternity is put into the closing hours, or minutes, 
of his life. It is greatly to be regretted that, in 
order to strengthen his argument against the 
doctrine of probation after death, the great 
Monday-lecturer of Boston should crowd so 
much probation, and put so many possibilities 
into the ' ' hour and article of death. ' ' Of course 
the possibility of genuine repentance at the close 
of a misspent life, need not be denied. And if one 
has not repented earlier, it is well for him to repent 
just before he goes to his final account. A dying 
man may well concentrate his thoughts on death 
and judgment, sin and the Savior; he who has 



216 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

given these great matters little or no attention 
for all the years of his life, may wisely consider 
them while his last opportunity is slipping 
away. But let us not suppose that such late 
repentance, even if genuine, is as good as an 
earlier repentance and a Christian life. It can 
not undo the evil of a wicked life; it does not 
prepare the soul for so high a place in the future 
world; it does not give an abundant entrance 
into heaven, but, like a ship-wrecked mariner, 
such a one reaches the other shore with his spir- 
itual life barely saved, and must start into the 
next life comparatively poor. 

But possibilities are not of as great value as 
probabilities, and the importance of this subject 
is such that we may well consider what is prob- 
able. If we intend to "take our chances" on 
being saved by death-bed repentance, it is well 
to "calculate the chances," to see if we had not 
better change our intention. Can we afford to 
take any chances, to run any risk of losing 
heaven? 

You may hear people quoting the general 
promises of the Bible to penitent souls, as an ar- 
gument for the efficacy of repentance, however 
late. But all must admit that the quality of the 
repentance is all-important, and to this our sub- 
ject will soon bring us. Strangely enough, the 
parable of the laborers, in which those hired at 
the eleventh hour received as much as those who 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 217 

had worked all day, is quoted as favoring the 
value of dela} r ed, or "eleventh-hour" repent- 
ance. That parable plainly refers to the early 
call of the Jews, and the later call of the Gen- 
tiles. Besides, the reason wiry the laborers who 
began at the eleventh hour, did not begin earlier, 
was that the\ T could not get work earlier: "No 
man hath hired us." The man who imitates 
these laborers, should repent at the first oppor- 
tunity, not at the last. The efficacy of death- 
bed repentance is often argued from the Savior's 
promise to the penitent thief on the cross. But 
it is probable that this man had no knowledge 
of Christ till he was crucified beside him. It is 
reasonable to suppose that he learned all he 
knew of the Savior, after he saw him at Calvary; 
that the Savior's conduct under suffering con- 
vinced him that the title "King," on the Lord's 
cross, was well bestowed, and that his kingdom 
was "not of this world." His first conviction 
of the true character of Jesus was immediately 
followed b} r confession of sin and prayer to 
Christ. We may well, one has remarked, admire 
the promptness of his repentance, rather than 
reproach him for its tardiness. 

Have you ever noticed the Savior's warnings 
of the danger of waiting till the last hour before 
making our preparations to meet him? Two of 
them are recorded together, one at the close of 
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and the 



218 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

other at the opening of the next chapter. The 
first of these declares the blessedness of the serv- 
ant who does his duty in his master's absence, 
and is found at his post on his master's return; 
and says of the ' ' evil servant ' ' who takes ad- 
vantage of the delay of his master's coming, to 
live a riotous life, that "the lord of that servant 
shall come in a day when he looketh not for 
him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and 
shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his por- 
tion with the hypocrites." If the servant had 
only known just when his master would return, 
he would probably have sobered up and put 
things in order. Does not this parable teach 
the wickedness and the danger of living as we 
please while God seems to leave us to ourselves? 
May Ave not learn from it that we may be sur- 
prised in the midst of our sins by a summons to 
meet our Lord? The next chapter opens with 
the parable of the virgins. The bridegroom 
came so unexpectedly that by the time the fool- 
ish virgins had their lamps filled and trimmed, 
*'the door was shut," and they were excluded 
from the feast. The Master gave the moral of 
this parable in these words, "Watch, therefore, 
for ye know neither the day nor the hour where- 
in the Son of man cometh." The pre v ous para- 
ble was prefaced with similar words: " There- 
fore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye 
think not, the Son of man cometh." 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 219 

We may well consider some special difficulties 
that lie in the way of trusting to death-bed re- 
pentance for a preparation for heaven. One of 
these is, as suggested and enforced by the para- 
bles just considered, that we may not have time 
to repent. Sudden deaths from accident or dis- 
ease afford no time to make special preparation 
for eternity. Many diseases, and many medical 
remedies, produce unconsciousness, and the pa- 
tient is never aware of his condition. 

We may lack a disposition to repent. If it is 
too great a task for us to break off our sins 
now, will added years and strengthened habits 
of sin make it easier to repent? Are we not as- 
sured by experience that sin hardens the heart, 
and that habit becomes second nature? A man 
who had reached the age of a hundred years, 
was asked if he were a Christian, and, answer- 
ing in the negative, was asked what he was go- 
ing to do, so old, and without hope. He re- 
plied, " Oh, I intend to become a Christian before 
I die." The clergyman who related this inci- 
dent, in which he was himself the questioner, 
added that the man died without hope four 
years later. 

But, supposing we have both the time and the 
disposition for this late repentance: will not our 
repentance be defective on account of our life- 
long delay?" It is something we purposed to 
leave till the last hours of life, that we might 



220 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

live in sin against the God whose mercy we in- 
tend to implore when he is about to call us to 
account for our godless lives. It is, shall we 
say, a sharp trick on which we have been calcu- 
lating, so that, after enjoying the "pleasures of 
sin," we may not suffer its pangs, but have all 
the delights of the saints in heaven. We aim to 
make the most of this world by being sinners, 
and the most of the next world by a sudden 
transformation into saints. We will cheat the 
justice of God, and deceive his mercy. But can 
we thus mock God? And will not the near or 
immediate prospect of death essentially change 
the nature of our repentance, and render it 
valueless? 

Will not such repentance be imperfect on ac- 
count of mental and bodily weakness? We sin 
in health and strength, we purpose to repent 
when health and strength have failed. Our life 
and strength are given to self and sin, our dying 
hours and our weakness are given to repent- 
ance. When the passions are dormant through 
old age or sickness, it is easy to reprove our- 
selves for giving way to "unbridled appetite." 
When we are no longer able to enjoy the world, 
it is no wonder we bewail our folly and sin in 
giving our lives to the pursuit of ignoble ends. 
But is there not great danger that our case will 
illustrate Dry den's line, 

"Repentance is but want of power to sin*'? 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 221 

If we had our former strength, if the fires of 
passion were still burning, would we give our- 
selves to repentance and prayer? Is it not to be 
feared that such late repentance is too late? 

On account of this physical and mental weak- 
ness, there will be much danger of self-deception. 
We no longer feel the "motions of sins;" we 
concentrate what little power of thought is left 
us, on our sins and our Savior. We have no de- 
sire to sin, because we have no power to sin in 
our old way. We are easily persuaded that a 
great change has come over us, and we feel that 
we are prepared for death. Many cases are on 
record of such willingness to die, and recovery 
to health has killed all the good resolves, the re- 
pentance has been repented of, and friends have 
been reproved for obtaining promise of amend- 
ment by taking advantage of the weakness of 
mind and body during sickness. It must be sad 
for an unsaved man to be self-deceived till death 
undeceives him. 

Death-bed repentance is likely to be insincere 
on account of the pressure of motives. In times 
of danger or of threatened death, many blas- 
phemers have prayed most earnestly, but have 
resumed their oaths when the danger was over. 
" It is fear that cries out in agony; not penitence 
that prays . ' ' Witness Pharaoh's frequent prom- 
ises to Moses, while a plague was on Egypt. 
Mark his anxiety, after the death of the first- 



222 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

born, to have the Israelites leave the country. 
But note that he soon changed his mind, broke 
his promise, and went out with his army to 
bring back his slaves. Read several verses fol- 
lowing the text, and find further illustrations of 
this insincere repentance: insincere because it is, 
in a sense, forced. The Millerite excitement 
swept many people into the churches; but when 
the fateful date in 1843 passed without the com- 
ing of Christ, the pressure of motives was re- 
moved, and many went back to sin, or plunged 
into infidelity. 

Do not these considerations make it seem very 
improbable that any man will be saved through 
death-bed repentance? Is it not a slim chance 
to which they are trusting who are postponing 
the time of their return to God? Can a man 
afford to assume this uninsurable risk? A Jew- 
ish teacher said to his pupils, " Be sure to repent 
one day before you die." They said no man 
knows when he will die, therefore it was impos- 
sible to follow their teacher's advice. "Then," 
said he, "repent to-day, for you may die to- 
morrow." 

We ought not to close our study of this sub^ 
ject without a glance at its moral aspect. The 
plan is to serve God as little as possible; to give 
him the gleanings of our lives instead of the 
harvest; to give the world our strength, and 
God our weakness; to use our lives for ourselves, 



DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 223 

and give our death to God; in the quaint lan- 
guage of Lorenzo Dow, to "burn out the candle 
of life in the service of the devil, and throw the 
snuff into the Almighty's face." Christ died for 
us, but -we are only anxious to die in Christ; we 
are not willing to live in him and for him. Is it 
honest? Is it right? Is it not mean? 



224 



CHRISTIANITY TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 

" While they yet believed not for joy.' —Luke, 24:41. 

The state of mind indicated by the text, is of 
sufficiently frequent occurrence to be well under- 
stood. When the aged Jacob, who had long 
mourned his favorite son as dead, was told that 
" Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all 
the land of Egypt," then "Jacob's heart fainted, 
for he believed them not." The Psalmist de- 
clared, "When the Lord brought back the cap- 
tivity of Zion, we were like them that dream;" 
that is, it did not seem real that so blessed a 
change had come. Peter, delivered from prison, 
at first ' ' wist not that it was true which was 
done by the angel; but thought he saw a vis- 
ion." And the people who were praying for his 
deliverance, were with difficulty persuaded that 
Peter was at liberty, and was knocking at the 
gate. The text exhibits the temporary unbelief 
of the apostles because it seemed too great a 
happiness to receive their Master back from the 
dead. The resurrection of Christ was the 
crowning miracle by which his claim to be the 
Messiah was demonstrated. Christianity rests 
its claims securely on the "many infallible 



TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 225 

proofs" of the Savior's resurrection from the 
dead. Of Christianity, as of the Lord's resur- 
rection, it maybe said, in keeping with the senti- 
ment of the text, that it seems too good to be 
true. 

Christianity has been strangely misunderstood 
and grossly caricatured, not only by its enemies, 
but by some of its friends. There are systems 
of theology that are built of metaphysics, in- 
stead of being constructed from the New Testa- 
ment; they omit the life and love that character- 
ize the Gospel of Christ; they bind man and God 
with chains of law, instead of binding God to 
man and man to God with cords of love. 

Akin to these misconceptions of Christianity, 
and indicative of a worse moral, if not of a 
worse mental, condition, is that perverseness 
which will see only the reverse side of the Gos- 
pel, or the dark background of the beautiful re- 
ligion of love painted by the hand of Christ. 
These perverters of the Gospel see in it law rath- 
er than the Redeemer, restraint rather than con- 
straint, malediction instead of benediction, sor- 
rowful tidings instead of good news, sin but not 
salvation, hell but not heaven. These men 
choose to look on the God of the Bible, not as a 
Father, but a Judge, a hard Master, not a mer- 
ciful Helper. They see in Christ a foe, not a 
friend: to them he seems like a representative of 
justice whom they would beg to " depart out of 



226 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 

their coasts," rather than the incarnation of 
Divine Love calculated to "draw all men" to 
the cross on which he was "lifted up." They 
know he said, "Depart, ye cursed," but forget 
his other words, "Come, ye blessed." They re- 
gard Jesus as one whose purit}- unfits him to 
sympathize with sinning men, forgetting that 
by his experiences, sufferings and temptations, 
he became ' ' touched with a feeling of our 
infirmities." 

Before noting a few reasons why the religion 
of Christ seems too good to be true, let us try to 
clear away some difficulties that, to some minds, 
seem insurmountable. With reference to what 
are called the harsh doctrines of the Gospel, 
specially those pertaining to sin and its punish- 
ment, we may note that Christianity is not re- 
sponsible for the depravity of man, nor for the 
punishment that folio ws sin here and hereafter. 
Men talk of the Bible doctrines of the fall of 
man and original sin, when they ought to speak 
of the facts concerning these matters, which the 
Bible records as matter of history. An infidel 
lecturer in Wisconsin made an objection to that 
book because it teaches that woman, who is the 
angel-part of the human race, was the first sin- 
ner. Should history lie, in order to be chival- 
rous to the gentler sex? There would be sin in 
the world if there were no Gospel; sin was in 
the world, and suffering for sin, before a word 



TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 227 

of the Bible was written. Sin and suffering ex- 
ist where the Gospel has never been preached. 
Blot out every page of the Bible, destroy the 
Book and all knowledge derived from it; you 
can not thereby diminish the quantity of sin and 
suffering in the world. 

It is easy to turn this apology into an argu- 
ment. In nature and in our experience, God 
teaches us that he is the foe of sin; in the Bible, 
he reveals more clearly the nature and the effects 
of sin, and tells of danger ahead. Sin naturally 
leads man to ruin: Christianity demonstrates 
its Divine benevolence by standing in his path 
with a torch burning with the lurid fires of hell; 
and with this red light tries to warn him in time 
to save him from destruction. Now why is it 
that this Divine benevolence, whose voice is 
heard in every Scripture warning or threat, 
whose "good will toward men " is seen in every 
Bible picture of hell — why is it that it seems too 
good to be true? Is not this the answer? — Sin, 
every sin, not only injures the sinner, but defies 
God; the sinner counts God as an enemy, con- 
siders his laws severe, his work irksome: yet 
God, instead of destroying him, tries to save 
him; instead of considering him an enemy, treats 
him as a friend. It seems too good to be true. 

But the Christian Revelation does something 
more than to show our condition and warn us 
of our danger; it tells of a way of escape, a way 



228 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 

made known only in the Bible. Nay, more: it 
provides a way of escape, declaring that "God 
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto him- 
self, not imputing their trespasses unto them." 
And thus it oifers Divine help to every soul striv- 
ing against sin. Man, weak and sinful by na- 
ture, is offered help by grace; the supernatural 
comes to the rescue of the natural; the arm of 
the Almighty is extended to every man who sin- 
cerely desires to be saved. 

In setting forth the means of man's redemp- 
tion, the Bible teaches that Christ, the living 
Word who "became flesh," is "God over all, 
blessed forever." The doctrine of the incarna- 
tion has often been pronounced too good to be 
true. We are told to study the heavens, to think 
of the illimitable universe of which the earth is 
an insignificant part. It is regarded as proba- 
ble that many, if not the most, of the worlds 
are inhabited by intelligent beings. Man is con- 
sidered as " a mud-speck on a mud-ball." Wiry 
should the great Ruler of the universe be so con- 
cerned as to this infinitesimal part of creation? 
How can we believe that he showed a special 
interest in this world and a personal interest in 
every member of the human family? Is it credi- 
ble that he "was made in the likeness of men; 
and being found in fashion as a man, he hum- 
bled himself and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of thecross "? However we mav 



TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 229 

wish and hope that this doctrine might be estab- 
lished, is it not too good to be true? 

The Bible doctrine of immortality seems too 
good to be true. Man has so much of the ani- 
mal, his lower nature is so prominent, his spirit 
so eludes the search of science, his aims, efforts 
and thoughts are so largely confined to his body 
and this life, that it seems improbable that he is 
an heir of immortality. His moral condition is 
such that it seems incredible that he can befitted 
for a holy and happy eternit}^. The re-union of 
the pure in heart in heaven, seems too good to 
be true. Shall we clasp the hands, and see the 
faces, and forever enjoy the society of the dear 
ones we long ago bade farewell? Can heaven 
be a place of such glory and happiness as the 
Bible teaches; a world without sin, sorrow, 
pain or death? Is it possible that we, who have 
sinned so much, shall yet be among the saints in 
glory? Is it not beyond hope that the suffering 
saints of earth shall have an eternity without a 
pain? Can we believe that "God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes "? And dare we 
hope that the happiness of heaven will abide, 
3 r ea, increase, forever? Is it not too good to be 
true? 

John Wesley refers, in one of his sermons, to a 
Dr. Hutchesonwho was not a believer in Christ- 
ianity, but who said, "Who would not wish 
that Christianity were true, since it is undoubt- 



230 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 

edly the most benevolent system of religion that 
has ever appeared among mankind?" (I quote 
from memory.) A few considerations may help 
ns to see that the Christian religion is not in- 
credible, though it is seemingly too good to be 
true. 

Though in ruins b\ T his sin, man has the grand- 
eur and the ground-plan that prove he was built 
for a Temple of the Holy Ghost. The Gospel 
simply shows that God has undertaken to re- 
build this temple; that he purposes to refit it for 
its original use; in a word, that man is worth 
saving. We are not to measure man by his 
body, but by his mind; not by his condition, but 
by his history, and his possibilities of develop- 
ment. It is not a question of the size of the 
earth, but of the nature of man, and of his spec- 
ial need of Divine help. If man is "the image 
and glor\^of God," if he was made in God's like- 
ness, is it not credible that, to rescue his own 
image, God should be "made in the likeness of 
men"? The incarnation is not inherently im- 
probable, and the "footprints of the Creator" 
are seen in the life of Jesus Christ. Man's na- 
ture and Christ's nature, man's need and the 
Savior's work, unite to prove the "good tidings 
of great joy " credible and true. 

Again, Christianity is supported by evidence. 
The apostles "believed not for joy," but the 
Savior soon demonstrated the realitv of his res- 



TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. 231 

urrection, and their rejoicing hearts found it 
was not too good to be true. His resurrection 
proved his claims; by it, he was "declared to be 
the Son of God with power." His religion is 
thereby stamped with Divine authority. It has 
.abundant evidences, of every kind, to prove its 
truth. If it is true, it is not too good to be true. 
Facts convince our doubts that spring from joy. 
Nothing is too good to be believed, if the good 
Father says it or does it. He is constantly sur- 
prising his children by wonderful tokens of his 
love and his care. He is always kinder to us 
than we had reason to expect. Should we hear 
that a miser had given all his hoardings to char- 
ity, we would be justified in doubting the truth 
•of the story. But when we hear that a well- 
Iviiown philanthropist has become his own exec- 
utor, and has given his fortune for educational 
•or charitable purposes, the report is easily cred- 
ited. Christianity is not the " Religion of Hu- 
manity," but the religion for humanity which 
grew out of the heart of God. It may seem too 
good for us, but it is not too good to be the gift 
-of our Father. A humble citizen, receiving a 
valuable present from a Roman emperor, said, 
""Sire, this is too great a gift for me to receive." 
The ruler replied, "But it is not too great for 
Cesar to give." "Thanks be unto God for his 
unspeakable gift." 



232 



LESSONS FROM THE THREE CROSSES. 

"And when they were come to the place which is called Cal- 
vary, there they crucified him and the malefactois, cue on the 
right hand, and the other on the lei t."— Luke, 28:33. 

Taken together, these crosses give us a sample 
of human justice: the innocent Jesus is "num- 
bered with the transgressors. ' ' Not always by a 
conscious perversion of right, by false accusers 
and an unjust judge, but often by fateful circum- 
stantial evidence and b\- human ignorance, pun- 
ishment has been meted out to innocent men. 
Facts are too abundant to require any citation. 
"What is law?' '-was asked of a candidate for 
admission to the bar. The answer had much 
truth, as well as wit: " An unjust distribution of 
justice." 

The three crosses are also a lesson in Divine 
Providence. God permits evil to come to good 
men, and permits good to come to evil men. 
There is nothing approaching a just allotment 
of rewards and punishments in this life. There- 
by a future life and a just judgment become nec- 
essary. 

Contemplated singly, each of these crosses 
has a special lesson. Look at the central 



THE THREE CROSSES. 233 

cross. On it hangs the sinless Savior who 
dies for sinful man. His death was in order to 
victory over death. His crucifixion abolished 
crucifixion; for the emperor Constantine, three 
hundred years later, out of regard for Christ, 
ordered that the cross should no longer be used 
as an instrument of punishment. Well wrote 
Dr. Hugh Blair: " The cross, which they thought 
was to stigmatize him with infamy, became the 
ensign of his renown; instead of being a re- 
proach to his followers, it was to be their boast 
and their glory. The cross was to shine on pal- 
aces and churches throughout the earth; it was 
to be assumed as the distinction of the most 
powerful monarchs, and to wave in the banner 
of victorious armies, when the memory of Herod 
and Pilate should be accursed, when Jerusalem 
should be reduced to ashes, and the Jews be vag- 
abonds all over the world." Calvary, the scene 
of the crucifixion, was " without the gate." By 
a change in the walls, it is, in all probability, 
now included within the city. So death, by 
Christ's death, has been included within the 
Christian's possessions, and has lost its terror. 
Above all, the central cross teaches the love of 
God to man, and opens the way to pardon, holi- 
ness and heaven. By that cross lies man's way 
to the "crown of life." Who, when Jesus suf- 
fered on Calvary, would have supposed that one 
of the most common of religious emblems would 
be the combined cross and crown? 



234 THE THREE CROSSES. 

On one of the other crosses, a repentant rob- 
ber suffered and died. He rebuked his fellow- 
robber, confessed the justness of their punish- 
ment, professed faith in the sinlessness of Jesus 
who was crucified as if he were a great crimi- 
nal, and pleaded, "Lord, remember me when 
thou comest in thy kingdom." To him the Sav- 
ior answered, "Verily I say unto thee, to-day 
shall thou be with me in paradise." The lessons 
of this man's cross may be briefly stated. Sin- 
ners may be saved; great sinners may be saved; 
great sinners may be saved in a moment. 

"The dying thief rejoiced to see 

That fountain in his day; 
And there may I, though rile as he, 

Wash all my sins away." 

What a change, from Calvary with its suffer- 
ings and shame, to paradise! A companion of 
Jesus in ignominy, and, before the day had passed, 
a companion of the Savior in the world of bliss! 
This is indeed an encouraging lesson, but we 
may need to guard ourselves against presum- 
ing on the mercy of God. For this purpose, we 
need not leave that scene on Calvary. 

On the third cross, died an impenitent sinner. 
He died as he lived, as most of us will die. Is it 
not safe to say that one lesson of this cross is, 
that if a man lives in sin, it is probable that he 
will die in sin? But add to this the startling 
fact that this unrepentant sinner died within 
sight and hearing of the world's Redeemer. 



THE THREE CROSSES. 235 

The only being who cotild save him was at his 
side, and was ready to save him if he desired to 
be saved. But from the side of that cross where 
the Savior gave his life for sinners, this man 
went out into a hopeless eternity. There is a 
road from Calvary to ruin; from family altars, 
pews and pulpits, to perdition. So near to 
Christ, yet unsaved. "Then I saw that there 
was a way to hell even from the gates of heav- 
en." Friends, it is not our nearness to Christ, 
but our laying hold of Christ, that saves us. 



236 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."— 1 The;- 
salonians, 4:18. 

The words of the text elose a remarkable pas- 
sage in Paul's writings, and it ma}' be well for 
us to read that passage before going farther. 
It begins with the thirteenth verse. 

The clearness with which this portion of Holy 
Writ sets forth the re-union and recognition of 
friends on the other shore, is such that our text 
is a fitting close, for these words are full of com- 
fort. The dead spoken of are "the dead in 
Christ," who are only " asleep," for they " sleep 
in Jesus." Christians are not to sorrow for 
those "gone before," as heathen and world- 
lings sorrow, "which have no hope." It is 
stated that "them also which sleep in Jesus, will 
God bring with him," and that if we should re- 
main on earth till the Lord conies with his 
saints, we "shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: 
and so shall we," that is, our departed friends 
in Christ, and ourselves, "ever be with the 
Lord." The cords of love shall prove to be 
stronger than death, severed souls shall be 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 237 

rejoined, and the glad re-union shall be for 
eternity. 

The Master advises us to make friends by the 
right use of this world's goods, "that, when ye 
fail, they may receive you into everlasting habi- 
tations." This intimates that our friends will 
be ready to welcome us to our eternal home. 
They maintain their interest in us, as we main- 
tain our interest in them. 

The Savior more than once speaks of "Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God," 
in a way to indicate that they are together in 
the spirit-world. Moses and Elijah came to- 
gether to the mount of transfiguration, and de- 
parted together. Those noble prophets had 
found each other and come to know each other, 
after they left the earth. Kinship of soul is a 
stronger bond than earthly friendship or natural 
ties. 

There are two allusions to this subject in Sec- 
ond Corinthians. In the first chapter, Paul 
writes, "We are your rejoicing, even as ye are 
ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." How could 
Paul rejoice over his converts in the world to 
come, if he did not see them and know them? 
In the fourth chapter are these words: " Know- 
ing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall 
raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us 
with you." In the resurrection-state, the apos- 
tle expected to meet his converts from Corinth. 



238 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

Except the passage from which our text is 
taken, all these New Testament quotations are 
incidental allusions to our subject, rather than 
formal proofs of the doctrine. But they are the 
more valuable for that reason . They show that 
future recognition is taken for granted. Just as 
the Bible contains no elaborate argument for 
the existence of God, but in its first sentence as- 
sumes that fact; just as we are not told that 
man was created with the power of free choice, 
but learn from the record that the prohibition 
and the condemnation are evidences that God 
treated man as free and responsible; so the doc- 
trine of future recognition is assumed, and we 
are not to expect an array of proof-texts to sup- 
port it. The yearnings of the human heart, the 
almost universal belief of the doctrine in all 
ages, and the fact that the Bible nowhere con- 
tradicts it, are no small evidence of the truth of 
future recognition. If the Scriptures were per- 
fectly silent on the topic, we should feel that that 
silence is eloquent in approval of this doctrine 
of the heart and of natural religion. 

We may approach our subject in another way. 
It is plainly taught in Scripture that we shall 
survive the stroke of death; that all that goes 
to make up our individuality will continue to 
exist. We shall be consciously the same persons 
we were here; our characters and our mental 
powers will be unchanged by moving out of our 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 239 

"earthly house " into the "house not made with 
hands;" our memory must, therefore, be active: 
how, then, can it be otherwise than that our 
earthly history will be remembered, and our 
friends will still be dear to us? Whatever dif- 
ferences of opinion may exist as to the resur- 
rection and the spiritual body, the resurrection, 
however viewed, teaches the personal identity 
of the risen. We shall be ourselves, not some 
ethereal beings developed from us, and forgetting 
their origin and antecedents. 

Add to this that we may reasonably expect an 
increase of our knowledge as soon as w r e reach 
the spirit-world, and it would seem we shall have 
no reason to doubt that we shall know our 
friends when we meet them. A Scotchman was 
on his death-bed. His w r eeping wife said to him, 
" Sandie, do you think we shall know each other 
in heaven? " The reply was, "Woman, do you 
think we shall know less there than we do 
here?" 

If it be asked, "How shall w r e know our 
friends?" — the answer might be that we can not 
expect to know much of the heavenly world till 
we reach it. But we may help ourselves a little 
by considering how many things there are by 
which w r e recognize our friends here. You know 
your friend by his face; but you also recognize 
him by his dress, his form, his gait, the sound of 
his voice or of his step; you also know him by 



240 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

his tastes, his moods, his very whims and pe- 
culiarities: by many marks he is distinguishable 
from any other person. In the ease of our heart- 
friends, it is the "inner man" that we know, 
the soul that animates the bod} 7 ". We would 
know that soul in another body, if it could ex- 
change bodies with some other person. Why 
should there be any difficulty in our recognizing 
it in a "spiritual body," when we get such a 
body for ourselves? 

Christian friends, we shall soon be where 
many of our dear ones have already gone. Death 
divided us; death shall reunite us. While we 
shall love the Lord most in heaven, as we love 
him most here, we shall love him all the more, 
there as here, for the gift of our friends. We 
shall love them in him, as we love him for them 
And with hearts knit together in love for God, 
we shall rejoice that farewells are a thing of the 
past. May we all be there ! 



